Intensification of agriculture and social complexity: a bioanthropological perspective of prehistoric populations from coastal Central Andes

Author(s)

Luis Nicanor Pezo Lanfranco

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Biociências (IBIOC/SB)
• Defense date: 2015-05-14

Examining board members

Sabine Eggers; Pedro José Tótora da Gloria; Rodrigo Elias de Oliveira

• Advisor: Sabine Eggers

Abstract

From a comparative bioarchaeological perspective this research addresses the issue of changes in subsistence patterns associated with the intensification of agriculture on the coast of the Central Andes and their implications to the social complexity process. Markers of oral pathology and nutritional stress were examined, along with stable isotopes, and other paleodietetic and archaeological data of 09 prehistoric coastal populations dated to the Formative period (~3000-1 BC). The results show that the predominance of rich carbohydrate diets is very old in the region, also on shoreline settlements, and the process of complexity was based in agriculture as an economic basis. The theocratic societies of 3rd and 2nd millennium BC flourished based on agriculture of tubers, legumes, fruit trees and corn in smaller quantities (below 20%), using farming techniques highly adapted to the aridity of the Pacific basin valleys. A drastic change in the Andean coastal diet occurred between 500-1 BC, when the corn became the main regional staple concomitant to the appearance of secular governments (AU)