Abstract
The Lambayeque Valley on the north coast of Peru offers a cautionary case study on the relation between climatic and cultural change. Three archaeological site complexes dating from late in the first millennium AD to the middle of the second millennium AD rose and were abandoned in sequence. Each abandonment was associated with a conflagration on the main pyramidal mound(s). In this region, El Niño is the most significant climatic disruption now and for millennia past. By tracking proxy records for El Niño intensity, we found that only the first episode of abandonment and burning was associated with a strong peak in El Niño intensity, while the final episode was the outcome of the Spanish Conquest of the Andes, a distinctly non-climatic driver. These records suggest that equifinality is operative and urge caution in over-interpreting climate as culture-changing catastrophe.
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Reference48 articles.
1. Pampa Grande and the Mochica Culture;Shimada,1994
2. Cultural continuities and discontinuities on the northern north coast, Middle-Late Horizons;Shimada,1990
3. The Pyramids of Túcume: The Quest for Peru’s Forgotten City;Heyerdahl,1995
4. A major Holocene ENSO anomaly during the Medieval period
5. El Niño variability off Peru during the last 20,000 years
Cited by
6 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献