From Foraging to Farming in the Andes

by Dillehay, Tom D.; Kaulicke, Peter (CON); Maggard, Greg (CON); Netherly, Patricia J. (CON); Piperno, Dolores (CON)

• ISBN13: 9781107005273
• ISBN10: 1107005272
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-02-14
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

Archeologists have always considered the beginnings of Andean civilization from ca. 13,000 to 6,000 years ago to be important in terms of the appearance of domesticated plants and animals, social differentiation, and a sedentary lifestyle, but there is more to this period than just these developments. During this period, the spread of crop production and other technologies, kinship-based labor projects, mound-building, and population aggregation formed ever-changing conditions across the Andes. From Foraging to Farming in the Andes proposes a new and more complex model for understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to cultivation. It argues that such developments evolved regionally, were fluid and uneven, and were subject to reversal. This book develops these arguments from a large body of archaeological evidence, collected over 30 years in two valleys in northern Peru, and then places the valleys in the context of recent scholarship studying similar developments around world.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Research history, methods, and site types

Pleistocene and Holocene environments

El Palto phase

Las Pircas phase

Tierra Blanca phase

Preceramic mounds and hillside villages

Human remains

Preceramic plant use

Faunal remains

Material cultures

Forager and farming land use systems

From foraging to farming and community development

Northern Peruvian early and middle preceramic agriculture in Central and South American context

Conclusions

Radiocarbon dates from the study area

Dry forests and biomes of the coastal valleys and lower western slopes of northwestern Peru

Stable carbon isotopes

Faunal remains from all phases

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