Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru: Bioarchaeological Perspectives on Adaptive Transitions [1st ed.] 9783030426132, 9783030426149

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xviii
Introduction (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 1-10
Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 11-28
Ecological and Archaeological Contexts (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 29-43
Pre-Hispanic North Coast Cultures and Foodways (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 45-66
Spanish Colonization and Subsistence of the Colonized (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 67-83
The Lambayeque Biohistory Project: Contexts and Analysis (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 85-111
Results: Paleopathological and Stable Isotope Findings (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 113-156
Lambayeque Paleodiet and Nutrition: A Diachronic Analysis (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 157-176
The Lambayeque Valley Complex: Food and Culture in Context (Bethany L. Turner, Haagen D. Klaus)....Pages 177-189
Back Matter ....Pages 191-227

Citation preview

Bioarchaeology and Social Theory Series Editor: Debra L. Martin

Bethany L. Turner Haagen D. Klaus

Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru Bioarchaeological Perspectives on Adaptive Transitions

Bioarchaeology and Social Theory Series Editor Debra L. Martin Professor of Anthropology University of Nevada Las Vegas, NV, USA

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11976

Bethany L. Turner • Haagen D. Klaus

Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru Bioarchaeological Perspectives on Adaptive Transitions

Bethany L. Turner Department of Anthropology Georgia State University Atlanta, GA, USA

Haagen D. Klaus Department of Sociology and Anthropology George Mason University Fairfax, VA, USA

ISSN 2567-6776     ISSN 2567-6814 (electronic) Bioarchaeology and Social Theory ISBN 978-3-030-42613-2    ISBN 978-3-030-42614-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42614-9 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

This engagingly written and important case study on the bioarchaeology of pre- and post-contact Peru is the first book in this series where food provides the nexus for answering a broad range of questions about how indigenous populations adapted to, resisted, and survived the immense impact of Spanish invasion. This study delves deeply into relationships between health and diet in the context of power and cultural crisis. Focusing on the indigenous communities in the Lambayeque River Valley of Peru in the time periods before, during, and after colonial domination, the authors present a nuanced and empirically driven interpretation of resistance and survival. The interpretations are not focused solely on the suffering that colonization inflicted (which it emphatically did) but also on the adroit and often ingenious ways that people adapted and endured. Part of how they were able to survive was to fiercely protect their indigenous traditions regarding food and diet and to renegotiate and reinvent local ethnic identities in spite of Spanish attempts at erasure through assimilation. Thus, within the context of cultural crisis, disruption, and massive change, there was a continued and determined adherence to key traditions and ceremonies around food and foodways. This is a story about survival in the face of cruel circumstances, and it provides insight into how people simultaneously resist and adapt while enacting both agency and subservience to their advantage. One of the trademarks of bioarchaeology is the capacity to draw on multiple lines of evidence to build robust interpretive frameworks. In this case, skeletal data provides one powerful line of evidence. Additional data is drawn from ethnohistory, archaeology, and biogeochemistry. In this way, a nuanced picture emerges around several key areas of interest: ethno-social identities, diet and foodways, patterns of sharing and consumption, and changes in demography and health. An integrated bioarchaeological study such as this one is ideal for clarifying what life was like on the ground before, during, and after European contact from the perspective of individuals and communities who lived through it. What makes this study so formidable is the strong application of social theory at every step of the analyses so that complex ideas surrounding food, gender, identity, kinship, alliance-making, and subsistence are interpreted within compelling v

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Foreword

t­ heoretical lenses having to do with where power is located and how it is manifested and used prior to and during the colonial presence. The authors do not ask simple questions regarding what people ate. They frame a much broader set of questions involving every aspect of cuisine, from its nutritional content to its symbolic and cultural aspects. The complexity and nuance brought to the multiple levels of analysis is innovative, compelling, and important. The bioarchaeology of diet and foodways sets an important research agenda for how to bridge complex social theory, innumerable datasets, and varieties of human agency into a cohesive analytical framework that sheds light on human behavior. This is bioarchaeology and anthropology at its best. This volume joins a small number of published bioarchaeological books on the effects of Spanish conquest on local indigenous populations. As a deeply rendered case study situated in a particular place and historical moment, this study often reads like a complex historical novel set over many generations, with families and households using all of their resources and wits to find creative ways of formulating their new colonial identities while adapting and adopting their local traditions. While many bioarchaeology studies reconstruct diet and its effects on health, this study is different. It interrogates the ways that food selection, preferences, gastronomies, and cooking are all laden with symbolic and cultural meaning. In great detail, the authors compellingly demonstrate that the food that people choose to produce, prepare, and eat is inextricably entangled with large social processes. The touchstone of the book is the simple yet powerful dictum that the authors chose to open their narrative with: “If you can control your food, you can control your destiny” (Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota Nation, see the chapter “Introduction” for full reference). Through the lens of foodways, the authors pull together multiple lines of evidence using human remains (isotopic and osteological data along with archaeological and ethnohistoric sources) that show that understanding the evolution of indigenous foodways in past populations provides a unique perspective on issues being grappled with in many parts of the world today. Rapid cultural change, foreign state intrusions, and imposed economic systems are threatening the diet and health of people all over the world. This case study could open up new ways of thinking about the scale of the problem and possible solutions. Series Editor, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory  Debra L. Martin University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA

Acknowledgments

This book was years in the making, and we have many people to thank. We are immeasurably grateful to Debra L. Martin, Series Editor, for the opportunity to contribute this book to Springer’s Bioarchaeology and Social Theory series. We could not have asked for a more supportive colleague and mentor at every stage of the process. We are also grateful to Associate Editor Christi Jongepier-Lue for her continued support and to everyone in the Springer production offices. The Lambayeque Biohistory Project has been generously funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS #1026169), the Wenner-Gren Foundation (Grants 7302, 8009, 8132), the Tinker Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Ohio State University, Utah Valley University, George Mason University, and Georgia State University. Essential logistical support for the project was provided by the Museo Nacional Sicán. Permits and oversight for the excavations, sample collection and exportation, and analyses that produced the data that form the core of this book were provided by Peru’s National Ministry of Culture in Lima and the Ministry of Culture, Chiclayo, Lambayeque. We gratefully recognize the contributions of Rosabella Alvarez-Calderón, Brian Birtch, Stevan Clark, Victor Curay, Carlos Elera, Julie Farnum, Marco Fernández, Carey J.  Garland, Gabriela Jakubowska, Daniel S.  Jones, Juan Martínez, Emily Middleton, Analise Polsky, Raul Saavedra, Fausto Saldaña, Benjamin J. Schaefer, Sam Scholes, Paul Sciulli, Nicola O. Sharratt, Izumi Shimada, Manuel Tam, Marla Toyne, Carlos Wester, David Yells, Molly K. Zuckerman, the dedicated undergraduate students from the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo and Utah Valley University, and the people of Mórrope. This book is dedicated to our respective mentors, George J. Armelagos and Clark S. Larsen. It is also dedicated to our loving, supportive, and patient families: it takes a village to write a book, and we are so lucky to have you all as ours. Bethany L. Turner, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia Haagen D. Klaus, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia

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Contents

Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 1 Contextualizing Contact Studies in Bioarchaeology ����������������������������������    2 2 Key Aims of This Book��������������������������������������������������������������������������������    5 3 Overview of the Book����������������������������������������������������������������������������������    8 Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes����������������������������������������   11 1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   11 1.1 Bioarchaeology in Waves������������������������������������������������������������������   12 2 Theorizing Foodways: Anthropological Perspectives����������������������������������   14 2.1 Food and Identity������������������������������������������������������������������������������   17 2.2 Foodways and Encounters����������������������������������������������������������������   18 3 Theorizing Foodways in Andean Antiquity ������������������������������������������������   21 3.1 Eating Under Spanish Rule��������������������������������������������������������������   25 4 Conclusion ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   27 Ecological and Archaeological Contexts��������������������������������������������������������   29 1 The Natural Setting��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   32 2 The North Coast of Peru������������������������������������������������������������������������������   33 3 The Lambayeque Valley Complex ��������������������������������������������������������������   35 3.1 Microenvironments in the Lambayeque Region ������������������������������   36 4 Central Andean Food Resources������������������������������������������������������������������   38 5 Conclusion ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   43 Pre-Hispanic North Coast Cultures and Foodways��������������������������������������   45 1 From First Settlement to the Growth of Complex Cultures: 12,500–1500 BCE����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   45 1.1 The Dawn of Social Complexity������������������������������������������������������   49 2 The Cupisnique, Salinar, and Gallinazo Peoples ����������������������������������������   52 3 The Moche Culture: 100–800/850 CE��������������������������������������������������������   56 4 The Sicán Culture: 900–1375 CE����������������������������������������������������������������   59 5 The Rise of the Chimú Empire and Conquest of the Inka: 900–1532 CE��   62 6 Conclusions��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   65 ix

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Spanish Colonization and Subsistence of the Colonized������������������������������   67 1 The Conquest of the Andes��������������������������������������������������������������������������   68 1.1 Approaching Postcontact Peru����������������������������������������������������������   68 1.2 From First Contact to Chaos������������������������������������������������������������   69 1.3 Toledan Reforms and the Emergence of Bad Government, 1569–1765������������������������������������������������������   71 2 Colonial Administration in the Central Andes ��������������������������������������������   72 2.1 Demography, Social Organization, and Settlement��������������������������   72 2.2 Colonial Economic Order ����������������������������������������������������������������   74 2.3 Religion, Resistance, and Syncretism����������������������������������������������   75 3 The Colonial Experience in the Lambayeque Valley Complex ������������������   77 3.1 Demographic Transformation ����������������������������������������������������������   78 3.2 Alterations of the Sociopolitical Landscape ������������������������������������   79 3.3 Economic Restructuring and Ecological Strain��������������������������������   80 3.4 Religion and Resistance��������������������������������������������������������������������   82 4 Conclusion ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   83 The Lambayeque Biohistory Project: Contexts and Analysis ��������������������   85 1 Lambayeque Biohistory Project Sites and Bioarchaeological Samples������   86 1.1 Ventarrón������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   87 1.2 Chotuna-Huaca de Los Sacrificios����������������������������������������������������   89 1.3 San Pedro de Mórrope����������������������������������������������������������������������   90 1.4 Eten ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   91 2 The Skeletal Samples����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   93 3 Methods��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   98 3.1 Oral Paleopathology: Inferring Diet-Related Stress ������������������������   99 3.2 Stable Isotope Analysis: Reconstructing Diet (and Maybe Cuisines) ����������������������������������������������������������������������  104 Results: Paleopathological and Stable Isotope Findings������������������������������  113 1 Patterns of Oral Paleopathology Over 3000 Years ��������������������������������������  115 2 Patterns of Paleodiet Over 3000 Years ��������������������������������������������������������  126 2.1 Early Horizon Period (1500 BCE–1 CE)������������������������������������������  130 2.2 Early Intermediate and Middle Horizon Periods (400 BC–900 CE)����������������������������������������������������������������  131 2.3 Late Intermediate and Late Horizon Periods (900–1536 CE)����������  150 2.4 Early/Middle Colonial Period (1536–1640 CE) ������������������������������  152 2.5 Middle/Late Colonial Period (1640–1750 CE)��������������������������������  155 3 Conclusion ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  155 Lambayeque Paleodiet and Nutrition: A Diachronic Analysis��������������������  157 1 Interpretive and Contextual Frameworks����������������������������������������������������  157 2 Temporal Trends: Variations in Pre-Hispanic Oral Health and Multi-Isotope Patterning ����������������������������������������������������������������������  159 3 The Postcontact Transition��������������������������������������������������������������������������  164 4 Isotopic Interpretations��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  166 5 Stress and Contact����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  174

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The Lambayeque Valley Complex: Food and Culture in Context��������������  177 1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  177 2 Key Findings and Insights����������������������������������������������������������������������������  178 3 Enduring Legacies: Foodways in Contemporary Lambayeque ������������������  186 4 Conclusion ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  188 References ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  191 Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  223

List of Figures

Fig. 1

Map of Peru’s north coast region with archaeological sites of interest indicated (Map by Bethany Turner)����������������������������������� 9

Fig. 1

Drawing 204. The Royal Administrator and His Low-Status Dinner Guests: The Mestizo, The Mulatto, and the Tributary Indian. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980[1615]:509)���������������������� 26

Fig. 1

Map of the Lambayeque Valley Complex, highlighting the respective locations of Mórrope, the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological Complex, the Ventarrón Archaeological Complex, and Eten from which the skeletal samples studied in this book have been excavated. (Map by Haagen Klaus)��������� 30 Chronological periods for the major cultural phases on Peru’s north coast. Differing forms and tempos of regional developments resulted in broadly comparable (but regionally distinctive) cultural and temporal phases. (Illustration by Haagen Klaus)������������������������������������������������������������������������� 31

Fig. 2

Fig. 1

Drawing 394. September: Cycle of Sowing Maize. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980[1615]:1166)����������������������������������������������� 64

Fig. 1

Drawing 224. The Encomendero Making his Ceremonial Entrance into the Communities Under His Charge. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980[1615]:568)���������������������������������� 70

Fig. 1

Dental caries in a Late Formative era (Late Cupisnique culture, ca. 850–650 BCE) burial, Ventarrón Tomb 17 (2009). Overall, the presence and severity of dental pathological conditions among the Formative era skeletal remains was quite minimal. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)���������������������������������� 117

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Fig. 9 Fig. 10

List of Figures

Oral pathological conditions observed in a Late Moche period (ca. 550–850 CE) individual, Huaca Zarpán Entierro 9 (2009) spanning the presence of dental caries, AMTL, abscesses, and dental calculus formation. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 120 Dental caries and antemortem tooth loss in Middle Sicán period (900–1050/1100 CE) individual, Huaca Zarpán Entierro 9 (2011). (Photo by Haagen Klaus)������������������������������ 120 Advanced dental caries and alveolar abscessing seen in CNS Burial U3-50 (Early/Middle Colonial Period, Eten, ca. 1535–1620). (Photo by Haagen Klaus)������������������������ 128 Dental caries and antemortem tooth loss in CSPM Burial U5 04-5 (Middle/Late Colonial Period, Mórrope, ca. 1620–1750). (Photo by Haagen Klaus)�������������������������������� 129 Comparison of average crude prevalence of dental caries, antemortem tooth loss (AMTL), dental calculus, and alveolar abscesses from the Formative to Late Moche, Late pre-Hispanic, and overall Colonial Period samples�������������������� 129 Extensive dental calculus formation observed in the mandibular dentitions of Early/Middle Colonial Period individuals CSPM U3 05-34 (left) and CNS U4-6. (Photos by Haagen Klaus)����������������������������������������������������������������������� 130 Comparison of average crude prevalence of dental caries, antemortem tooth loss (AMTL), dental calculus, and alveolar abscesses from the Late pre-Hispanic to Early/Middle Colonial and Middle/Late Colonial Periods������������������������������� 130 Comparison of average crude prevalence of dental caries, antemortem tooth loss (AMTL), dental calculus, and alveolar abscesses between the Mórrope and Eten samples������� 131 Bivariate scatterplots of stable isotope data from Early Horizon sites. The number of individuals from each site included in each figure is featured in parentheses in the legend. Individual data points are plotted for Lambayeque Biohistory Project sites, while mean values ±1SD are plotted for values published elsewhere (see Table 7). (a) Bone and/or enamel carbonate δ18O vs. δ13C (b) paired bone carbonate and bone collagen δ13C plotted with regression lines formulated by Kellner and Schoeninger (2007) (c) bone collagen δ15N vs. δ13C����������������������������������������������������������������� 148

List of Figures

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Bivariate scatterplots of stable isotope data from Middle Horizon sites. The number of individuals from each site included in each figure is featured in parentheses in the legend. Individual data points are plotted for Lambayeque Biohistory Project sites, while mean values ±1SD are plotted for values published elsewhere (see Table 7). (a) Bone and/or enamel carbonate δ18O vs. δ13C (b) paired bone carbonate and bone collagen δ13C plotted with regression lines formulated by Kellner and Schoeninger (2007) (c) bone collagen δ15N vs. δ13C���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 149 Bivariate scatterplots of stable isotope data from Late Intermediate/Late Horizon sites. The number of individuals from each site included in each figure is featured in parentheses in the legend. Individual data points are plotted for Lambayeque Biohistory Project sites, while mean values ±1SD are plotted for values published elsewhere (see Table 7). (a) Bone and/or enamel carbonate δ18O vs. δ13C (b) paired bone carbonate and bone collagen δ13C plotted with regression lines formulated by Kellner and Schoeninger (2007) (c) bone collagen δ15N vs. δ13C�������������������������������������� 151 Bivariate scatterplots of stable isotope data from Early/Middle Colonial Period sites. The number of individuals from each site included in each figure is featured in parentheses in the legend. Individual data points are plotted for Lambayeque Biohistory Project sites, while mean values ±1SD are plotted for values published elsewhere (see Table 7). (a) Bone and/or enamel carbonate δ18O vs. δ13C (b) paired bone carbonate and bone collagen δ13C plotted with regression lines formulated by Kellner and Schoeninger (2007) (c) bone collagen δ15N vs. δ13C����������������������������������������������������������������� 153 Bivariate scatterplots of stable isotope data from Middle/Late Colonial Period sites. The number of individuals from each site included in each figure is featured in parentheses in the legend. Individual data points are plotted for Lambayeque Biohistory Project sites, while mean values ±1SD are plotted for values published elsewhere (see Table 7). (a) Bone and/or enamel carbonate δ18O vs. δ13C (b) paired bone carbonate and bone collagen δ13C plotted with regression lines formulated by Kellner and Schoeninger (2007) (c) bone collagen δ15N vs. δ13C������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 154

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Fig. 1

List of Figures

Bivariate scatterplot of stable isotope values from terrestrial wild and domesticated plant resources for Peru’s north coast. Gray symbols represent C4 plants, while black symbols represent C3 plants. Diamonds represent wild herbaceous plants, while squares represent wild grasses, and circles represent domesticates and cultigens. Isotope values are drawn from Cadwaller et al. (2012), Szpak et al. (2013), Turner et al. (2010), and Miller et al. (2010)������������������������������ 159 Isotope values from terrestrial and marine animal resources for Peru’s north coast. Black circles represent fish; values from Tieszen and Chapman (1993). Gray squares represent camelids; values from Dufour et al. (2014), Finucane et al. (2006), and Szpak et al. (2014). Gray diamonds represent small animals: vizcacha (Tieszen and Chapman 1993) and cuy (Finucane et al. 2006)����������������������������������������������������������������� 160 Scatterplot of carbon and oxygen isotope values from individual enamel-bone dyads from Lambayeque Biohistory sites��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 168 (a, b) Multivariate scatterplot of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values from bone collagen and carbonate of Early/Middle Colonial Period remains (CNS and CSPM); values are compared to K-means cluster centroids from dietary estimation formulated by Froehle et al. (2012)�������������� 170 (a, b) Multivariate scatterplot of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values from bone collagen and carbonate of Middle/Late Colonial Period remains (CSMME and CSPM); values are compared to K-means cluster centroids from dietary estimation formulated by Froehle et al. (2012)�������������� 171 Map of the Peruvian north coast river valleys with published δ18Owater values collected from various environmental sources (Toyne et al. 2014). Includes the δ18Owatervalues estimated from bone and enamel carbonate values of Lambayeque Biohistory Project human remains. (Illustration by Haagen Klaus and Bethany Turner)��������������������������������������� 173 Drawing 240. The Parish Priest and His Thievish Accomplices at the Dinner Table: Common Indians, Mestizos, and Mulattoes. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980 [1615]:617)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 185

List of Tables

Table 1 Table 2 Table 1 Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Table 6

Paleobotanical evidence of plant exploitation in the pre-Hispanic Lambayeque Valley Complex��������������������������������� 39 Zooarchaeological evidence of pre-Hispanic faunal exploitation, Lambayeque Valley Complex���������������������������������� 41 G-test comparisons, oral pathological conditions, Formative versus Late Moche Periods��������������������������������������������������������� 116 G-test comparisons, oral pathological conditions, Late Moche Era (El Arenal sample) versus Late pre-Hispanic period (Middle/Late Sicán sample from the Ventarrón Complex and Huaca de los Sacrificios, Chotuna)���������������������� 118 G-test comparisons, oral pathological conditions, Late pre-Hispanic period (Middle/Late Sicán sample from the Ventarrón Complex and Huaca de los Sacrificios, Chotuna) versus overall postcontact era (Mórrope and Eten combined)��� 121 G-test comparisons, oral pathological conditions, Late pre-Hispanic period (Middle/Late Sicán sample from the Ventarrón Complex and Huaca de los Sacrificios, Chotuna) versus overall Early/Middle Colonial Period era (Mórrope and Eten combined)�������������������������������������������������������������������� 123 G-test comparisons, oral pathological conditions, overall Early/Middle Colonial Period era (Mórrope and Eten combined) versus Early/Middle Colonial Period era (Mórrope and Eten combined)��������������������������������������������������� 125 G-test comparisons, oral pathological conditions, Mórrope versus Eten������������������������������������������������������������������� 127

xvii

xviii

Table 7

Table 8

List of Tables

Summary table of isotopic datasets from Lambayeque Biohistory Project sites and comparative north coast sites, with citations provided for the latter, by time period and cultural association��������������������������������������������������������������������� 132 Summary table of stable isotope data from Lambayeque Biohistory Project sites��������������������������������������������������������������� 133

Introduction

If you can control your food, you can control your destiny.  – Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota Nation (Lee 2019)

The Spanish invasion and conquest of the Central Andes—a region encompassing Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile—wrought profound and devastating changes to the lives of millions of indigenous people. The subsequent colonization of this and other regions of the Americas initiated centuries of profoundly complex biocultural processes that permeated every aspect of life (Koch et  al. 2019). The peoples of the Andes were transformed by European contact in ways that could never have been anticipated by their pre-Hispanic ancestors and are just beginning to be understood by modern scientific study. However, an important dimension of this history, often overlooked in popular imaginings of a “New World” being “discovered” by technologically superior peoples, is the reality that the Central Andes and the rest of the Western Hemisphere had been host to countless complex societies adapted to particular landscapes and ecologies for over 9000 years. To understand the full, and variable, effects of European colonization across the Americas and Caribbean, one cannot begin the story when European boots landed on American beaches. Instead, the story must begin much earlier and provide a richer history of the indigenous civilizations who arose, expanded, declined, and sustained for millennia before European encounters. This book presents one such story, set in the Lambayeque valley of Peru’s northern north coast, and centered on food. The Lambayeque Valley Complex is the largest coastal valley system in all of Peru; prior to the Spanish invasion, it was one of two centers of in situ cultural complexity—the Lambayeque Valley Complex and Jequetepeque Valley Complex to its south—on the north coast. By the time the Spanish arrived, the north coast had seen the rise and fall of chiefdoms such as the Cupisnique (1500–650  BCE), early states such as the northern Moche polity (100 CE–800 CE), technical and economic innovation by the theocratic Sicán state (900 CE–1375 CE), and foreign dominion by the coastal Chimú and highland Inka empires (1375 CE–1532 CE). The Lambayeque valley cultures produced sophisti© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B. L. Turner, H. D. Klaus, Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42614-9_1

1

2

Introduction

cated political and economic systems, technologies, urban landscapes, and expansionist states distinct from those further south or up in the montane highlands or Altiplano high plateau; instead, these cultural systems were oriented and adapted to the resource base and ecology of the north coast. Adding to this dynamic is that underneath the surface of all these political, economic, and ideological changes, archaeological evidence indicates that a local ethnic population known as the Muchik or Mochica crystallized during the early Moche period and maintained cohesion well into the early Spanish Colonial Period (Klaus 2008). This makes the Lambayeque Valley Complex an excellent locus of local continuity within larger regional processes of change, all tied to a combination of maritime, agricultural, and wild food resources and burgeoning regional exchange networks. In this context, we can more fully appreciate the cataclysmic changes brought about by Spanish conquest and colonization against the backdrop of long-term cultural development on the north coast. Moreover, we can situate the north coast in comparison to other regions of the Americas conquered by the Spanish or other European powers. This book therefore draws on established yet dynamic frameworks for reconstructing the processes and impacts of European contact to provide a view from an understudied region.

1  Contextualizing Contact Studies in Bioarchaeology European contact in the Americas has been examined in modern times with the works of Alfred Crosby (1972) and others (Dobyns 1966, 1983; Ramenofsky 1987; Thomas 1989, 1990, 1991; Viola and Margolis 1991; Zubrow 1990). These classic studies often frame European contact as a one-way, multi-­species “Demographic Takeover” (Crosby 1993), whereby European weeds, microbes, rodents, insects, livestock, and people terraformed the Western Hemisphere and devastated their indigenous American counterparts. The above-­referenced works do provide ample evidence supporting waves of ecological, epidemiological, and cultural devastation throughout the Americas, as do the rare surviving indigenous accounts (Hackett and Shelby 1942: 23–24; León-Portilla 2007). However, this unilateral framing largely glosses over the ways in which Native peoples had transformed landscapes and created immensely complex societies for millennia prior to Columbus’s accidental encounters with islands in the Caribbean. More recent research has sought to address this (Van Buren 2010), using postprocessual frameworks of identity, agency, and cultural practice to study variation in colonial lived experiences (Lightfoot and Simmons 1998) and, importantly, the emergence of creole cultures in the Americas (Deagan 1996; Deagan 2003; Deagan and Cruxent 2002; Silliman 2005; Smith 1997; Van Buren 1999). Historical documents, oral histories, and archaeological material culture represent invaluable sources of information about life prior to, during, and in the aftermath of successive invasions and colonization by the Spanish, British, French, Portuguese, and Dutch. However, the information preserved bones and teeth make

1  Contextualizing Contact Studies in Bioarchaeology

3

the human skeleton possibly the most informative and data-rich category of archaeological material (Gowland and Knüsel 2006). Moreover, to study a human skeleton is to study an individual, and studies of large-scale trends that rely on individuals as the foundational units of analysis provide critical “bottom-up” perspectives (Erickson 1993) on what are often thought to be top-down processes. Bioarchaeology is therefore ideally suited to investigate the commonalities and particularities of indigenous life before and after European contact. In the 1990s, the first generation of bioarchaeological contact studies emerged (Baker and Kealhoffer 1996; Larsen 1994, 2001; Larsen and Milner 1994; Verano and Ubelaker 1992), drawing on many of the analytical frameworks and population perspectives pioneered in bioarchaeological studies evaluating the biological effects of the shift to agriculture (Cohen and Armelagos 1984). In a foundational work, Larsen and Milner (1994) assembled bioarchaeological studies of indigenous cultures across North and Central America and the impacts of European colonialism on their diets, health, and well-being. Consequently, much of the comparative picture of postcontact Native American population biology is skewed toward North America, where contact appeared to have had highly variable effects on indigenous populations (Hutchinson 2016). Bioarchaeological studies of archaeological remains associated with European contact in North America include those of the Iroquois (Pfeiffer and Fairgrave (1994), Omaha and Ponca (Reinhard et al. 1994), the Chumash (Walker et al. 1989), the Pueblo (Spielmann et al. 2009, Stodder 1994), and tribes in Massachusetts (Baker 1994), the Dakotas (Kelley et al. 1994), Georgia (Garland et al. 2018; Larsen and Harn 1994; Larsen et al. 2001), Florida (Hutchinson and Norr 1994), and the Pacific Northwest (Cybulski 1994). In Central America, similar studies include the Maya in Guatemala (Story et al. 2002) and Belize (White et al. 1994; Cohen et al. 1997). These studies underscore the significant variation in population size and density, subsistence regimes, infectious disease ecology, and other factors prior to European contact and equally significant variation in the localized effects of contact and conquest over the next several centuries. This perspective has continued with more recent studies in Barbados (Shuler 2011), Panama (Rojas-Sepúlveda et  al. 2011), and elsewhere (below). Contrary to earlier models of uniform demographic and cultural collapse (Dobyns 1983; Sale 1990), many of these bioarchaeological studies point to oppressive colonial policies rather than—or at least equal to—infectious epidemics as the causes of population decline. Indeed, ethnohistorical and archaeological research indicates that the nature of Spanish colonization of Central Andes was substantively different from colonization or hegemonic control of earlier indigenous empires. Spanish colonization represented wholly different paradigms related to economic networks, reciprocity, roles of kurakas, and local institutions of authority (Ramírez 1996). The nature of Spanish colonialism in the Andes also appeared distinct in comparison to other colonized regions. In the Caribbean, Venezuela, and tropical regions of Mesoamerica, European species were less successful. In contrast, temperate and mountainous regions that more closely resembled the environments of southern Europe, such as the Western Cordillera of the Central Andes, experienced more of a

4

Introduction

“demographic takeover” (Crosby 1994). The Central Andes was also particularly tumultuous during the sixteenth century, first under the control of conquistadores and then, later, under Toledo’s reforms. Many of the policies enacted in the late sixteenth century by the Toledo government were outmaneuvered by both Spanish and indigenous groups but also resulted in crowded and often unsanitary settlements known as reducciones (Andrien 1991). Despite these extended periods of upheaval, however, not much is known regarding the health and resilience of indigenous Andeans as they navigated oppressive colonial policies. Moreover, bioarchaeological research in North and Central America also points to adaptability and flexibility among indigenous populations in maintaining their cultural identities and practices despite the yoke of oppression, exploitation, and religious conversion. It is unfortunate, then, that bioarchaeological studies of Spanish conquest and colonization of South America are rare. The first and, for many years, only research was by Douglas Ubelaker in Ecuador (Ubelaker 1994; Ubelaker et  al. 1995; Ubelaker and Newson 2002). Ubelaker’s expansive survey of some 1500 individuals from 20 sites spanning 9000 years provides a glimpse not only of contact and early colonization but patterns of morbidity and mortality across the Spanish Colonial Period. Moreover, these Colonial Period patterns are richly contextualized within a much broader temporal context and show that health and well-being among indigenous populations had already declined with increased sedentism and agricultural production. The declining health indicated in colonial remains therefore was not a sudden and aberrant event, but rather another example of the long-term effects of steadily increasing social and structural complexity. More recently, Melissa Murphy and Catherine Gaither have studied patterns of violent trauma related to Spanish conquest and early colonization of Peru’s central coast at the site of Puruchuco-Huaquerones (Gaither and Murphy 2012; Murphy et  al. 2010, 2011). They and Jocelyn Williams have also contextualized their analyses of contact period remains by analyzing the much larger sample of Inka remains from the same cemeteries (Murphy and Boza 2012; Murphy 2004; Williams and Anne Katzenberg 2012; Williams and Murphy 2013). From roughly the same time, bioarchaeological studies identifying systematic malnutrition and stress among enslaved Africans from Plantation Waterloo in Suriname (Okumura 2011) and of dental modification among enslaved Africans in Brazil (Liryo et al. 2011) count among the only published bioarchaeological studies of Africans brought to South America. In the southernmost region of the continent, Guichón et  al. (2017) provide another rare bioarchaeological study of colonial South America, that of the Selk’nam peoples of nineteenth-century Tierra del Fuego. Finally, one of us (HDK) has undertaken over 15 years of systematic excavation, mortuary analysis, and osteological analysis study of cemetery and ritual contexts throughout the Lambayeque Valley Complex of Peru’s northern north coast. This project, known as the Lambayeque Biohistory Project, has included over 3,000 individuals, spans over 3000 years, and is the largest examination of pre-Hispanic and Spanish colonial lives in South America. Our decade-long collaboration has expanded the Project to include the largest stable isotope dataset—over 300 individuals from 4 sites—associated with Spanish contact and colonialism in South America.

2  Key Aims of This Book

5

2  Key Aims of This Book This book adds to a new wave of studies in the bioarchaeology of conquest and colonialism, in the Americas and worldwide. In a recent volume, Murphy and Klaus (2017a) assemble research on archaeological human remains from Sudan, Peru, the southeastern United States, the Yucatán Peninsula, southern Europe, and the Near East to explore the dialectical relationships between colonizers and the colonized. A similar theoretical framing underlies this book, drawing on processual and postprocessual perspectives to delve into the biocultural history of the Lambayeque Valley Complex, beginning in the Formative period and continuing through the Colonial Period. While the primary focus of this study is an examination of the transformative aspects of Spanish conquest and colonization, it is only possible to do so within a broader view of the longue durée of cultural development in Lambayeque. We present a synthesis of stable isotopic and osteological data within a specific, and somewhat novel, analytical framing: that of foodways or food culture more broadly. The overarching questions that we investigate in this book include: 1. How variable, or consistent, are diets through time in pre-Hispanic Peru’s northern north coast? Specifically, how did the foods that people consumed shift between the earliest phases of cultural complexity and agricultural intensification and ensuing periods of in situ and foreign state formation, consolidation, and decline? How does the evolution of indigenous foodways in the millennia before the Spanish invasion inform our perspective on postconquest diets, diet-­ related stress, and foodways? 2. How did the Spanish invasion, conquest, and colonization of Andean South America affect the way that people ate in the Lambayeque Valley Complex? Was there a shift toward consumption of European comestibles, a persistence of traditional foodways, or some combination of the two? 3. Were there any changes in indigenous diets between the first century and second century following Spanish conquest? What do these changes (or lack thereof) tell us about Lambayeque foodways over the course of the Colonial Period? Bioarchaeological studies of diet and nutrition have revolutionized our understanding of subsistence and consumption as well as the dynamic and variable relationship between diet and overall nutritional status (Buikstra and Beck 2017; Cohen and Armelagos 1984; Goodman et  al. 1995; Martin et  al. 1981; Sobolik 1994; Vargas 1990; Wright and White 1996, to name a few). However, a less explored area of bioarchaeology is the intersection of subsistence, nutrition, and the cultures of food: the ways in which food choices, preferences, cuisines, and other culturally mediated forms of meaning-making reflected, performed, and even framed larger processes of tradition and transformation. In the colonized Andes, and indeed the Americas as a whole, diets represented entanglements of choice, necessity, resistance, oppression, stigma, and pride. Foodways in the Colonial Periods of the Americas were likely fraught with ambivalence among indigenous, enslaved, and colonizing people alike, reflecting the literal internalizing of foods rich with ­symbols

6

Introduction

used to frame identity and status. In discussing archaeological and historical ­evidence of the enduring nature of food practices among indigenous groups during periods of contact, Graesch et al. (2010: 213) argue, “If ‘you are what you eat,’ then what you eat carries even greater significance when ‘who you are’ is thrown into question.” A major force behind the transformation of indigenous foodways—indeed, of indigenous life in general—was a fundamental reorganization of regional macroeconomics (for northern Peru, see various chapters in Contreras and Hernández, 2017). In nearly all settings of Spanish colonialism in the New World, there were clear economic motivations that drove the Europeans. Spanish authorities from California to Georgia, the Yucatán Peninsula, and throughout South America generally conducted their business to three ends: extractive exploitation of resources and human labor, conversion of indigenous peoples to Roman Catholicism, and consolidation of military control to deter competing colonial powers (Walker 2001; Weber 1992). This agenda unfolded quite differently in nearly every setting. Changes were inevitable, but the timing, degree of transformation, and speed of change all varied widely (Larsen and Milner 1994; Murphy and Klaus 2017a). The same was likely true of changes to indigenous food cultures, as new creole identities and cuisines emerged. In tropical regions less accommodating of European crops and livestock, Spanish colonists were more likely to adopt local food resources out of necessity, often unwillingly and with much complaint; in the Andes, however, Spanish and Creole were co-opting indigenous foods even when they did not need to (reviewed in deFrance 1996: 23; Staller and Carrasco 2010). Over the last decade or so, archaeological studies of ancient foodways via the paleobotanical and zooarchaeological records have begun to bloom in the Andes and elsewhere (reviewed in Cuéllar 2013), making it possible to parse these varied transformations of food cultures. Once largely neglected, such studies have been steadily increasing in number, increasingly positioned as integral elements of the research design of field projects (Biwer 2019). These lines of information make it possible to reconstruct combinations of ingredients, preparation, and serving techniques and infer categories of everyday meals versus ceremonial foods. Moreover, they represent a key contextual pillar for any bioarchaeological study of diet—connecting the skeletal and isotopic record to physical food remains. However, household food preparation does not unequivocally translate to household consumption; even when it appears to do so, there remain nuanced intrahousehold dynamics that can have significant impacts on understanding the intersection between cuisines and consumption. Actual consumption also has implications for understanding nutrition, and thus the study of human remains becomes central in expanding a biocultural discussion of food in antiquity. Our study of the Lambayeque Valley Complex is based entirely on human remains from cemetery or other interment contexts; There has been relatively limited excavation of household, village, and food remains-related contexts. Indeed, this articulation with foodways is less a “view from the kitchen” (Cutright 2014) than one from the grave. However, the isotopic and osteological data in this study

2  Key Aims of This Book

7

are presented, analyzed, and interpreted within a large and established corpus of pre-Hispanic archaeological research, and colonial-era ethnohistoric research, on the north coast and other Andean regions spanning over ten millennia. There is therefore ample contextual evidence of available food resources, subsistence regimes, and consumption in both household and feasting or other ceremonial contexts. Moreover, as noted above, this rich and prolific body of literature represents indirect evidence of what Muchik and other indigenous north coast peoples were consuming through time. The abundance or even ubiquity of a resource does not equate to its consumption, nor does its habitual preparation in a given household. For example, evidence from the colonial Colca valley in southern Peru indicates stark inequality and significant food insecurity despite abundant food surplus (Wernke 2006; Wernke 2013), underscoring the need to independently estimate consumption alongside production and availability. This book presents direct evidence of diet composition through stable isotope analysis and links diet to indicators of nutritional or diet-related stress, such as markers of anemia and oral decay, building group-level inferences from analyses of individuals. While Klaus has undertaken in-depth analyses of biodistance, paleodemography, and paleopathology of Lambayeque cemetery samples elsewhere (Klaus et al. 2010; Klaus and Shimada 2016; Klaus and Tam 2009, 2010), the pathological conditions of interest discussed in this book are chosen specifically to examine the relationships between food, cultures, diets, and nutrition through time. We would refer interested readers to several excellent and extensive works on paleonutrition more broadly, referenced in Chap. 2. Instead, this study reports select pathological conditions, along with others previously published for some Lambayeque Valley Complex individuals (Klaus and Tam 2009, 2010). Many of the pathological conditions used to interpret diet and nutrition—such as linear enamel hypoplasia, porotic hyperostosis, and cribra orbitalia—are sensitive indicators of stress, but are nonspecific in that they can stem equally from stressors related to diet or to environmentally mediated variables such as infectious disease. Similarly, oral decay—carious lesions, bony abscesses, and antemortem tooth loss—can stem from cariogenic diets, but that can apply to a range of resources and is partly mediated by circulating sex steroids. Isotope ratios are thus independent proxies of diet that, when analyzed with frequencies of pathological conditions, can provide insights into the associations of food choice, food preparation, and physiological outcomes. Importantly, this particular study seeks to delve into relationships between diet and health that are not merely the before-after of Spanish conquest, based on the assumption of deprivation or forced assimilation. As Klaus (2008) discusses in detail, indigenous communities in the Lambayeque Valley Complex suffered profoundly but also adapted and endured over the centuries of Spanish colonial domination. This included the persistence of indigenous traditions and renegotiation of ethnic identity in spite of Spanish attempts at erasure. Therefore, this study specifically seeks to test the hypothesis that there was continuity in foodways and aspects of diets within overarching processes of disruption and change and to examine the nature of that continuity.

8

Introduction

3  Overview of the Book This book is organized into three main parts. The first section focuses on laying the foundations of this study: the chapter “Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes” discusses the ways in which food has been theorized in anthropology more generally, including in bioarchaeology, and in the ancient Andes in particular. This chapter begins with an overview of bioarchaeology’s theoretical underpinnings from its inceptions in the late 1960s through the early twenty-first century and the processual, often systems-based, paradigms of its biocultural approaches. The chapter then delves into structuralist and post-structuralist perspectives developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Mary Douglas, Pierre Bourdieu, and others, exploring the ways in which foods and cuisines produce and reproduce meaning, identity, and the rhythms of everyday life. Particularly germane to this study is the role of food in the pre-Hispanic cultures of the coastal Andes and in mediating tumultuous encounters such as occurred with Spanish colonization. The chapter “Ecological and Archaeological Contexts” provides an ecological foundation, discussing the different macroclimates of the Central Andes and the north coast of Peru, including the microclimates and ecozones of the Lambayeque Valley Complex. The chapter then provides a broad overview of food resources in the Central Andes, particularly those found on or accessible to the north coast. The second part of the book focuses on the cultural history of the Lambayeque Valley Complex and surrounding north coast region. The chapter “Pre-Hispanic North Coast Cultures and Foodways” provides a sweeping overview of archaeological and bioarchaeological research, beginning with the earliest evidence of habitation during the Preceramic period (12,500–2000  BCE). It then describes early sedentary societies and the rise of social complexity during the Formative period (2000 BCE–500 CE), including evidence of incipient agricultural production alongside thriving maritime subsistence regimes. It then describes the rise and fall of hierarchical states such as the Moche (100–800 CE) and Sicán (900–1375 CE), followed by the domination—but not necessarily colonization—of the north coast by the Chimú and highland Inka Empires (1375–1532 CE). Embedded in this overview of cultural history is archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence of foodways and food culture, when available. The chapter “Spanish Colonization and Subsistence of the Colonized” describes the profound changes that ensued in the Lambayeque valley following the initial arrival of Spanish conquistadores in 1532–1536 CE and the centuries that followed. The Colonial Period is divided into two phases: the tumultuous Early/Middle Colonial Period (1536–1640 CE) and the comparatively stable Middle/Late Colonial Period (1640–1750 CE). The third part of the book focuses on the Lambayeque Biohistory Project and our analysis of 324 individuals from 4 Lambayeque valley sites (Fig. 1). The chapter “The Lambayeque Biohistory Project: Contexts and Analysis” describes the project itself and the four sites—Ventarrón, the Huaca de Los Sacrificios at the Chotuna-­ Chornancap Complex, San Pedro de Mórrope, and Eten—from which the cemetery samples we studied are drawn. It also provides an overview of the rationales,

3  Overview of the Book

9

Fig. 1  Map of Peru’s north coast region with archaeological sites of interest indicated (Map by Bethany Turner)

a­ dvantages, and limitations underlying stable isotope analysis for reconstructing diet and foodways. The chapter similarly provides an overview of the osteological analyses and pathological conditions employed here to assess aspects of nutrition and diet-­related stress. Finally, the chapter describes the study samples, methodologies, and forms of data analysis that form the next two chapters.

10

Introduction

The chapter “Results: Paleopathological and Stable Isotope Findings” presents the results of oral pathological and stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotopic analyses from the Lambayeque Valley Biohistory Project, dividing the study sample into broad diachronic cohorts. The chapter briefly describes the paradigmatic focus of paleopathology as it relates to diet and nutritional stress and then discusses the particular pathological conditions included in this study and the results from each cohort. The chapter then shifts to a discussion of the isotopic data generated in this study; these results are compared with summary isotopic data published for human remains from other north coast sites, as well as available reference isotope data from wild and domesticated plants, livestock, game animals, and aquatic resources on Peru’s north coast. This chapter represents a comprehensive synthesis of isotopic paleodiet research in the north coast region, spanning three millennia and including the largest isotopic dataset for the Spanish Colonial Period in South America. The next chapter, “Results: Paleopathological and Stable Isotope Findings,” focuses on how these paleodiet data relate to markers of malnutrition or other dietrelated stress. The following chapter, “Lambayeque Paleodiet and Nutrition: A Diachronic Analysis,” summarizes the results detailed in the subsequent chapter “Results: Paleopathological and Stable Isotope Findings” and interprets all of these results within the analytical, theoretical, ecological, and cultural-historical frameworks of the previous chapters. The concluding chapter “The Lambayeque Valley Complex: Food and Culture in Context,” revisits the key questions presented in this chapter and discusses the broader impacts of this study for studying foodways in bioarchaeology and foodways in antiquity and of conquest, colonialism, and imperialism in the ancient world.

Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes

Food to a large extent is what holds a society together, and eating is closely linked to deep spiritual experiences. (Farb and Armelagos 1980)

1  Introduction The discipline of bioarchaeology has long involved reconstructing human health related to diet and nutrition (Buikstra and Beck 2017; Martin et  al. 2013; Larsen 2015). While various aspects of ancient life may pass unrecorded or unpreserved into history, the human skeleton provides a treasure trove of information about subsistence, disease ecology, malnutrition, trauma, and physical activity (Ortner 1991; Turner 1979; Waldron 2009). Tooth decay, lesions produced by nutrient insufficiency, and signs of disrupted or stunted growth all open a window through which bioarchaeologists can reconstruct patterns of subsistence and the effects of particular types of diets on health, culture, and human biology. Geochemical analyses open additional windows for reconstructing diets among individuals and even across an individual’s life span; such techniques can further reconstruct individual mobility and more accurately estimate group demography. Genomic analyses are revolutionizing the ways in which populations in the past can be connected to those in the present, while microbiological methods have similarly revolutionized the study of ancient diseases. Human remains provide a treasure trove of information about the lives of different peoples through time and across landscapes, but the data do not speak for themselves. Bioarchaeology has almost always been a discipline steeped in sociocultural theory, no more so than today. Recently, however, bioarchaeology has expanded its analyses of human remains to include a more explicit focus on bodies as complex artifacts of social and cultural processes as theorized by ScheperHughes and Lock (1987). In addition to reconstructing how people produced or acquired food, what they actually ate, and how it affected their bodily health, we can frame peoples’ choices about food in broader contexts of meaning, individual agency, and cultural norms. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B. L. Turner, H. D. Klaus, Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42614-9_2

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Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes

1.1  Bioarchaeology in Waves The population approach in bioarchaeology (Cohen and Armelagos 1984) marked a fundamental shift in approaching the human skeleton. In what Agarwal and Glencross (2010) describe as the first wave of bioarchaeology, analyses of human remains shifted from osteological case studies, racial classifications, and largely atheoretical diagnoses to measuring the biological impacts of large-scale cultural transitions and social stratification (Larsen 2001; Martin and Frayer 1997). The population approach incorporated (at least implicitly) various threads and perspectives from Marxist anthropology, cultural ecology, and human biology within what was explicitly framed as a biocultural approach. A second wave, sparked by seminal publications in the early 1990s, prompted researchers to critically examine what archaeological skeletal samples can and cannot tell us about health, frailty, and stress (Reitsema and McIlvaine 2014; Saunders and Hoppa 1993; Temple and Goodman 2014; Wood et al. 1992; Wright and Yoder 2003). This shift did not supplant the population-based approach but rather stimulated a more nuanced and critical discussion of what a skeletal sample actually represents of its original population. It also prompted a proliferation of studies incorporating newer methods such as isotope and ancient DNA analysis alongside more established techniques. Following these developments, Agarwal and Glencross (2010) identify a third wave of research in bioarchaeology. This third wave explicitly situates social theory in the core of research designs. Here again, bioarchaeologists have delved into not only what a skeletal sample can tell them about the original population but how to think about the population itself. The movement of social theory to the front and center of research designs has produced nuanced examinations of identity (Knudson and Stojanowski 2010) and deeply contextual reconstructions of communities (Kakaliouras 2017). Importantly, bioarchaeology has continually pushed the boundaries of its theoretical perspectives alongside its methodological advancements. As the latter are able to broaden the possibilities of what questions can be asked in studies of archaeological populations, the former richly complicates what, and how, questions should be asked. Advances in both methods and theoretical depth in recent decades have made archaeology and bioarchaeology well-suited to interpreting foodways in ancient complex societies. In particular, archaeological investigations have benefited markedly from advancements in archaeobotany and isotope bioarchaeology that derive viable data from even the smallest of soil and tissue samples. Concurrently, the field in general and bioarchaeology in particular have sought to use these advancing methods to push ever further into examinations of identity (Knudson and Stojanowski 2008), gender (Hastorf 1996), sexuality (Geller 2016), violence (Tung 2012), agency and social reproduction (Goldstein 2003), and other cultural phenomena. Importantly, bioarchaeological research is increasingly becoming steeped in classic and contemporary culture theory (Agarwal and Glencross 2010), applying a sophisticated set of analytical tools to address overarching questions more commonly found in ethnography.

1 Introduction

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An important aspect of this approach is a productive oscillation between individual bodies as both biological and cultural artifacts, similar to ScheperHughes and Lock’s (1987) classic concepts of the individual body, social body, and body politic as noted above. By systematically examining the remains of individuals using this biocultural perspective, bioarchaeologists are able to counter monolithic or top-down reconstructions of ancient communities. The ability to build population perspectives from the “bottom-up” (Erickson 1993) perspective, individual by individual, permits researchers to explore consistency versus variability within communities (Cuéllar 2013) and among communities within larger political and cultural structures (Costin and Earle 1989; D’Altroy 2002; Malpass and Alconini 2010). In this way, integrated archaeological and bioarchaeological analyses can reconstruct some of the critical dynamics between food and the identities, roles, and interactions of everyday life. Bioarchaeology and archaeology tend to focus, with equal interest, on both the spectacular and the mundane. Trash middens are equally important as monumental structures, domestic kitchens equally important as feasting halls, and forgotten cemeteries equally important as royal tombs. Each individual, no matter how fragmentary, contributes to a reconstruction of ancient cultural practice that builds generality from particularity. This endeavor, as with all aspects of archaeology, does have inherent limitations. The geochemical data used by bioarchaeologists to reconstruct diet, discussed in later chapters, typically represent average food consumption across months or, more often, years of an individual’s life, which inherently glosses over important details and nuances. The same can be said of faunal assemblages, pollen records, and other lines of evidence that produce big-picture snapshots rather than fine-grained longitudinal data. However, these broad strokes can be something of an asset when studying eating and subsistence across periods of significant cultural change because they wash out occasional or infrequent consumption of some foods and instead represent dietary fundamentals and common practices. A deeper theoretical appreciation for the intersections of food and identity, households and communities, modes of statecraft, and political economies of inequality is of paramount importance to situating these reconstructions of subsistence practices and patterns of consumption within larger social and cultural processes. In keeping with the third-wave paradigm of bioarchaeology, this chapter delves into the theoretical perspectives that frame our study of the Lambayeque Valley Complex: how people negotiate meaning with and through food. This chapter is not intended to be an exhaustive review of anthropological approaches to food and foodways. Rather, we aim to provide broader contexts for thinking about diet and nutrition beyond functional or deterministic perspectives driven by caloric requirements, available resources, and cost-benefit models. Further, this chapter introduces aspects of the methods used in this book—primarily analyses of stable isotopes and skeletal pathological conditions—but leaves more in-depth discussions of them for the chapter “The Lambayeque Biohistory Project: Contexts and Analysis”.

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Drawing on the work of cultural anthropologists and other social theorists allows us to engage more substantively with the richness of indigenous values, beliefs, preferences, and practices pertaining to food across millennia of significant in situ culture changes. Moreover, it allows us to better interpret the profound changes to diets, well-being, and identity related to the Spanish invasion and subsequent centuries of Spanish colonialism. Our analysis of the Lambayeque Valley Complex not only reflects but actively contributes to the theorizing of foodways and food culture in antiquity by presenting a substantial corpus of direct and indirect evidence from a region that, bioarchaeologically speaking, is far less represented in the field. Consequently, these data can provide some framing of the habitus (see below) that guided peoples’ everyday lives in the Lambayeque Valley Complex over three millennia, especially following Spanish conquest, as the cultural bedrock shifted and transformed beneath them.

2  Theorizing Foodways: Anthropological Perspectives Anthropologists have studied food and its relation to culture for over a century (reviewed in Mintz and Du Bois 2002). However, some of the most foundational contributions to the anthropology of food date to the 1960s and 1970s, with foundational works by structuralists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss (1990 [1968]:487) and Mary Douglas (1972) along with advocates of modern systems theory and cultural materialism including Marvin Harris (1974:11–32). Structural anthropology as framed by Lévi-Strauss focuses on common underlying “hidden rules” of culture that shape human conceptions and behaviors. These rules are so deeply embedded within the structures of society that members of a given culture understand them inherently but are not able to define or explain them per se (Lévi-Strauss 1973 [1972]; Winthrop 1991). Systems theory as it is used in anthropology was summarized by Rodin et al. (1978:748) as “focus[ing] on the meaningful interactions of the parts with one another and with the whole as they influence some process or outcome...thus tend[ing] to be processual (time and space), conditional, and probabilistic.” Thus, systems theory employs the same holistic approach as earlier functionalism while assuming change as an integral part. Lévi-Strauss and Douglas stressed the role of food as a signifier and central aspect of identity, using models such as the culinary triangle (Lévi-Strauss 1970) to explore larger themes of meaning and cultural symbolism. In contrast, Harris (1974) and other cultural materialists focused on foodways as part of complex flows of resources and selective pressures in ecological systems. Within any given ecological context, the foundational role of food-­ as-­infrastructure made it central in shaping everything from religious taboos to warfare and cannibalism. While Harris’s transformation of Marx’s concept of infrastructure was undeniably more reductive and deterministic than Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist perspectives, it did spur critical examinations of decision-making related to subsistence and consumption that had been dismissed as primitive or irrational in nonindustrial societies. In addition, its emphasis on local ecologies dovetailed productively with

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the contemporaneous studies of human adaptability (Moran 1979; Thomas 1976) and biocultural approaches to human health and well-being (Goodman et al. 1988; Janes and Pawson 1986; Katz 1982). Indeed, a proliferation of anthropological research in the 1970s and early 1980s produced incisive analyses of production, consumption, and inequity related to foodways in a wide array of social and cultural-ecological contexts, perhaps best exemplified by Sydney Mintz’s (1985) groundbreaking treatment of sugar and Farb and Armelagos’s (1980) sweeping biocultural review of eating. Granted, human diets often do reflect local ecologies and biological needs that can be reasonably understood in terms of systems theory or cultural materialist approaches in biological anthropology. Here, studies of subsistence often foreground cost-benefit decision-making (Hill 1988; Kaplan et  al. 2001), under- and malnutrition (Lieberman 2006; Sobolik 1994), and the role of diet in shaping our biological and cultural evolution (Harris 2009; Leonard et al. 2007). However, the need to ground biological anthropological approaches in social theory has become even clearer as studies of human diet evolution have undergone paradigmatic shifts over the past two decades. In particular, genetic and genomic evidence points to human subsistence behavior as a driver of microevolutionary change rather than the other way around. For example, the four identified mutations that confer lifelong lactase production (Tishkoff et al. 2007; Wang et al. 1995), and hence the ability to digest fresh milk beyond infancy, are not adaptations by themselves. It was only during the Neolithic era, with the rise of pastoralism in Northern Africa and Western Europe, that humans began to consume animal milks after weaning from breast milk. Only then did those random mutations in the LCT locus and its promoter regions provide adaptive benefits to the point that they represent both some of the strongest signals of natural selection in the human genome (Gerbault et al. 2011) and a rare example of parallel evolution in modern humans (Tishkoff et al. 2007). Other studies of amylase, an enzyme found in saliva, indicate that copy number variants—repeats of particular segments of DNA, in this case producing extra copies of the amylase gene—are more common in populations with a long history of reliance on starches, frequently associated with agricultural production (Perry et al. 2007). The pivotal nature of human subsistence as a catalyst of evolutionary change is made all the more impressive when one considers that most, if not all, of human behaviors related to food preferences, food aversions, and eating habits are socially learned and culturally mediated (Turner and Thompson 2013). It is this fundamental fact—that human eating behavior is primarily rooted in our cultures—which brings us back to the earlier framings of structuralism and systems theory. The study of subsistence and diet as a recursive process of internalizing culture and externalizing mental processes of meaning-making provides an ingress into understanding the interplay between food, identity, and community. The staple foods and cuisines with which people are raised become integral to habitus, conceptualized by Pierre Bourdieu (1977) as those fundamental aspects of life so deeply ingrained that they can be misunderstood as “natural” rather than culturally created. Bourdieu’s notion of habitus is integral to practice or praxis theory, developed in the 1970s by Bourdieu (1977) and other scholars such as Giddens (1991)—who framed his analysis as a “theory of structuration”—as a way to approach individual agency

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within overarching cultural structures and systems. Within practice theory, habitus is more than understanding hidden rules; it is also the diversity in how individuals and communities enact those rules, which both reproduce and transform their underlying structures. Food is a particularly intimate component of habitus in that it is literally internalized by individuals, ideally multiple times a day. Indeed, Dietler (2006:222) defines food as embodied culture that is destroyed by “the transformative power of ingestion.” Beyond the transformations wrought by teeth and salivary enzymes, humanity’s relationships to food center on the transformation of plants, animals, fungi, and microbes into edibles. Lévi-Strauss described the transformation from raw to cooked as analogous to nature made culture; beyond this dichotomy, however, is the myriad of ways in which people literally transform resources into foods using particular combinations, chemical treatments, specialized tools, and all the other trappings of cuisines. The food writer Elizabeth Rozin (1982) described cuisines as adaptive structures; in collaboration with food psychologist Paul Rozin, she developed the concept of “flavor principles” that help to define the combinations of ingredients that characterize different cuisines (Rozin and Rozin 1981). These flavor principles allowed groups to overcome neophobia (suspicion or avoidance of new foods) and incorporate novel food items into existing recipes, thereby transforming the foreign into the familiar. The notion that food cultures, and especially cuisines, represented both recognizable structural elements and dynamic systems reflects the interplay between structuralist and system-based approaches (Ortner 1984). An excellent example of this dynamic approach is Solomon Katz’s (1982) synthesis of 15 years of research which describes numerous examples where cuisines and related food practices neutralize problematic or even dangerous aspects of food resources, especially plants. Katz describes the process of nixtamalization where, among Native North and Central American groups, maize kernels are soaked in a lime or other alkali solution prior to grinding or other processing. The soaking improves texture and, critically, liberates niacin to improve the generally deficient amino acid profile of maize. He also notes the now-classic relationship between favism and malaria resistance in circum-­Mediterranean populations. Individuals with X-linked inherited deficiencies in glucose-­6 phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) can consume oxidant-rich fava beans to induce erythrocyte hemolysis. This effect is mild in women, who are often asymptomatic carriers and exhibit only partial deficiency, but can be severe among boys and men with full-blown favism. Nevertheless, the induced hemolysis effectively “carpet-bombs” the bloodstream and thereby makes the individual’s body hostile to the Plasmodium parasite that causes malaria. Finally, Katz (1982) describes the techniques used to make tofu, doufu, and other soybean-based foods throughout East Asia, where cooks use fermentation and/or precipitation with a divalent cation (such as magnesium or calcium) to deactivate the antitrypsin factor that makes soybeans otherwise indigestible and nutritionally deficient. Katz emphasizes the feedback between cultural tradition and nutrition, which created dynamic, adaptive biocultural systems linking both long-term knowledge and flexibility in the face of globalization and cultural change.

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In this sense, the dynamic structures and systems of foodways are broadly comparable to those of languages. Lévi-Strauss (1966:595) described food as a “language [that] unconsciously translates [a society’s] structure,” a notion echoed recently by Peruvian Chef Gaston Acurio Jaramillo (Dunbar 2016) in describing cuisines as “culinary languages.” Similarly, Dunbar (2016) ruminates on cuisines as languages and what they are communicating in different cultural contexts. Indeed, the rules and traditions about preparation, combinations, and contexts described by Katz and the Rozins broadly resemble grammatical systems, while particular ingredients are like vocabulary. New food items can be rapidly incorporated into an existing cuisine much like a new term can be rapidly adopted into an existing grammatical system, particularly if it has analogs with familiar food items.

2.1  Food and Identity As with other cultural structures, food and foodways play fundamental roles in shaping, maintaining, and performing identity among individuals and groups. As noted earlier, Lévi-Strauss stressed the role of food as a building block of identity, while Douglas’s (1966) work on purity and defilement is particularly well-suited to an aspect of culture that is literally internalized. Food is transformed from raw resource to cultural product and then taken into the body where it nourishes, comforts, and contaminates and is both literally and figuratively absorbed into the biological and cultural selves. However, while Claude Fischer (1988:275) argues that food is central to one’s sense of self and identity, Alan Warde (1997:199–200) cautions against assuming food is automatically critical to identity. Instead, Warde argues that food is a “marginal way of expressing personal identity,” especially in comparison with other cultural structures, and that people want food that is adequate, accessible, and familiar. However, one could argue that the very accessibility and familiarity of a food argues for its central linkage to the performance of everyday life. Moreover, ethnographic research notes that definitions of adequate or sufficient may reflect moral tropes or cultural schemas other than measured nutrient content (Khare 1980; Lupton 2005). Castells (1997:7–11, in Scholliers 2001:6) provides a fertile middle ground in emphasizing the distinction between identity, defined as meaning which frames the self, and roles, defined as categories based on function. Practice theory helps recognize that identities and roles form a dynamic, negotiated process of meaning-­making and performance. Analyses rooted solidly in practice theory allow us to examine the ways in which eating can simultaneously convey information about individuals’ selves and their roles in larger cultural structures. The common associations of nations and ethnicities with particular foods, meals, and eating practices—e.g., Ireland and potatoes, Italy and tomato sauces, Japan and raw fish, and Mexico and tacos—are thus fertile ground for examining the ways in which individuals or communities within these larger groupings articulate with these assumed relationships to food.

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Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes

2.2  Foodways and Encounters Food is thus fundamental to individual and group identities and roles within complex biosocial systems, especially in multicultural settings. Groups are often defined in part by the foods that they prefer to, have to, are forced to, and refuse to eat. Because they are so profoundly linked to individual bodies, community identities, and cultural structures, foodways can be used as tools of imperialism, ethnocide, assimilation, acculturation, and all of the different processes that can result from encounters between distant and unfamiliar peoples. A particularly extreme example of these encounters is the European invasion of the Americas (Dietler 2006). When American food crops were introduced to the Old World in the years following contact, some were quickly incorporated into existing foodways, while others were met with skepticism and even fear by commoners and little more than curiosity by elites. Because it is botanically similar to millet and wheat, different varieties of maize quickly became popular, even staples, throughout Europe and Africa (Galinat 1992:55; McCann 2007). Potatoes, on the other hand, were not brought back to Europe from the Andes until decades after the Spanish first encountered them (Davidson 1992:11). Even then, Europeans assumed that potatoes were poisonous because their Old World counterparts are in the nightshade family. Moreover, Europeans associated the appearance of foods with areas of the body they were likely to help or harm, using what was known as the Doctrine of Signatures (Davidson 1992:5). Based on the potato’s appearance, Europeans assumed it caused leprosy, cholera, and tuberculosis (Fedoroff and Brown 2004) to the point that potatoes were outlawed in France from 1748 to 1772. It was only when the potato’s utility in the cooler climates of Ireland and elsewhere became clear that the tuber emerged as fundamental to Old World subsistence regimes. In some respects, this is entirely sensible: the average farmer in early modern Europe relied on the knowledge, techniques, and crops that had proven successful, and deviating from those established techniques brought with it significant risk. Centuries of warfare and instability had taught the peasantry to distrust or simply ignore the dictates of far-off aristocrats. Stories of the French pharmacist and potato crusader Antoine Parmentier describe French peasant communities who were only willing to cultivate and eat potatoes after Parmentier and King Louis XVI posted guards around potato fields to entice thievery (Mann 2011). In the eighteenth century, English farmers viewed attempts to disseminate potatoes as part of a larger agenda to spread Catholicism to the English countryside, while the King of Prussia resorted to forcing potatoes on his subjects during a famine during the same period. In essence, Europe only “discovered” the utility of the potato—indeed, the transformative power to ward off famine—after a few decades of trial and error (Walvin 1997). Another more recent example of the enduring legacy of European encounters with South American foods is the history of quinoa and its rise to fame in the late twentieth century. This indigenous Andean grain (Chenopodium quinoa) is one of the few plants containing all nine essential amino acids, thus making it a complete source of protein in the human diet (McDonell 2016; Walsh-Dilley 2013). Once

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ubiquitous throughout the Central Andes, the Spanish derided quinoa as an “Indian food,” and this stigmatization of quinoa continued through much of the twentieth century until its nutritional quality propelled it to global popularity as a “superfood” (Walsh-Dilley 2013). As McDonell (2016:3) aptly sums it up, “Quinoa has long been denigrated precisely because the people who produce and consume quinoa are disparaged.” However, the relationship between foodways and hegemony is and always has been more complicated. To focus only on the actions of those in the dominant culture and not give equal attention to the perspectives of subjugated groups ignores what is often a complex dialectic. Therefore, it is important to think about what was incorporated and what was rejected among indigenous communities under European colonialism as an ongoing negotiation involving tangible, embodied symbols of assimilation, resistance, and indigenization (Dietler 2006). Importantly, archaeological and bioarchaeological research has begun adding this necessary nuance to ostensibly dualistic models of colonizers and Natives, foreigners and locals, and powerful and marginalized, using food as a proxy of tradition and change. By analyzing the relative proportions of domesticates and game in military, civilian, and cult contexts, Shuman (2008) identifies an overall continuity in civilian foodways at a site in the frontier province of Germania Inferior despite the prolonged presence of Imperial Roman military encampments. Indeed, Shuman argues that local food cultures may have influenced the soldiers’ eating habits more than the other way around. In contrast, a diachronic isotope analysis by Lightfoot et al. (2012) indicates significant shifts in diet over time in the Ravni Kotari region of Croatia related first to the arrival of Roman invaders and then Medieval migrants. Moreover, this study focuses not just on the foodstuffs themselves—millet versus wheat and marine versus terrestrial animals—but on changing cuisines as mediating identity; fish and garum became pathways for adopting a more Roman identity, while millet became a way of incorporating Slavic identity several centuries later. In the Andes, Goldstein’s (2003) work examining foodways within the Tiwanaku core and its incorporated peripheries emphasizes the centrality of fermented beer known as chicha to Tiwanaku success in drawing disparate groups willingly into their ideological sphere and governance. In a case study from Spanish Colonial North America, Graesch et  al. (2010) describe how Spanish administrators in Southern California forced Native peoples, mainly members of the Chumash nation, into Spanish missions and extracted their labor. Imported livestock herds destroyed wild plants, meaning that eventually Chumash and other Native communities had no choice but to adopt foreign foods, including wheat, peas, and domesticated meat along with traditional foods such as maize, hunted game, and coastal fish and shellfish. However, historical writings note the stated preference for Native foods among indigenous mission communities (Graesch et  al. 2010). Moreover, at one Chumash site, there is also evidence of large-scale feasting with no European foods, and the only Christian material culture was found in refuse, suggesting a rejection of European foodways despite the necessity of adopting them. In Colonial Northern California, by contrast, Lightfoot and Simmons (1998) suggest that indigenous cuisines acted as buffers to the impacts of culture change.

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In Mexico City, Rodríguez-Alegría (2005) argues based on analyses of household assemblages that Spanish colonizers included substantial amounts of indigenous ceramics in their kitchens and at their tables, possibly reflecting strategic diplomacy within dominant power structures. Similarly, Spanish wineries in Peru’s Moquegua region (Smith 1997) and household contexts in highland Bolivia (Van Buren 1999) indicate abundant local and indigenous ceramics in Spanish households, despite a bias toward European ceramics in public spaces. This handful of studies thus provides examples by which foods and food cultures acted to facilitate social change, buffer against it, represent resistance to it, and subtly influence it among different groups in contexts of colonization. They also underscore the importance of localized and contextualized reconstructions of production and consumption in attempting to understand meaning-making through food in colonized indigenous communities, particularly over time. Aiming for particularity in the archaeological record is also useful in interpreting the ways in which, in the case of this book, Spanish Colonial and indigenous Lambayeque communities may have interacted. Grignon (2001:24) described different types of commensality— eating and drinking together—that one is likely to encounter in modern and ancient contexts, including dyads of domestic/institutional and everyday/exceptional. Critical to our purposes is Grignon’s caution against conflating commensality (eating together) with conviviality (eating together because you like or feel solidarity with each other). Commensality can also be segregative, designed to maintain hierarchies through the establishment of closed groups, and transgressive, reflecting the ambivalence of moving between opposing social groups. Much of the research on food cultures in Andean archaeology has focused on distinguishing household (domestic, everyday) and feasting or ritual/ceremonial (institutional, exceptional) foodways. An excellent example here is Cutright’s (2014:65) “view from the kitchen,” as is Costin and Earle’s (1989) study of foods prepared in domestic contexts but likely served and eaten by others at feasts. However, there is great potential in exploring the ways in which both colonizers and the colonized negotiated segregative and especially transgressive forms of commensality in their eating practices and other aspects of daily life, leaving material correlates of “hidden transcripts” (Scott 1990) or tactics of resistance (de Certeau 1984). Here, another of Bourdieu’s concepts proves informative: the cultural field. Bourdieu (1984, 1994) situated the system of habitus that frames individual behavior and habits of mind within “fields of activity” that reflect meaningful sets of social conditions. Applying this concept of culture as a structured relational landscape of sorts is useful in thinking about how indigenous peoples navigated social landscapes fraught with hierarchy, oppression, resistance, and ambivalence in the centuries following Spanish conquest and colonization. It also helps guard against any mechanistic, deterministic, and typological tendencies that can plague purely structural or systems-based approaches. Examining the articulations and intersections between food and meaning in antiquity carries with it both opportunities and limitations. For example, archaeological investigations of agricultural intensification worldwide have served to

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upend, or at least amend, some of these common associations. Potatoes are native to Peru, not Ireland. While Italians indeed developed a variety of tomato sauces, the tomato is native to Mexico and was decidedly unpopular in southern Europe until long after its initial introduction (Davidson 1992). An obvious limitation lies in the very nature of the research: there is no opportunity to ask or observe the peoples of interest. Everyone is long-deceased, and many lived in nonliterate societies. Even written records, their own or those written by outsiders, are unlikely to provide sufficient information for researchers to tease apart the nuances of foodways and their relationships to larger cultural processes within and between complex societies. As Shuman (2008:143) notes, “even historical archaeologists are rarely privy to sources that reveal attitudes outside the dominant culture.”

3  Theorizing Foodways in Andean Antiquity The evolution, characteristics, and history of foodways represent relatively new foci within Andean archaeology. Long-dominant paradigms involving art history, architecture, and chronology building began to be complemented by studies of subsistence economies beginning in the late 1970s, paralleling the growth of zooarchaeology and paleobotany more broadly. There have been many subsequent insights and discoveries about Andean diets derived from the study of food remains. The arid climate of the north coast of Peru fosters very good and sometimes excellent preservation of organic remains and is an ideal setting for paleodietary research. Yet, this endeavor is not straightforward. Some coastal desert locations are quite humid year-round which can promote a poorer degree of organic preservation than areas that are just slightly further inland and markedly drier. Given this ecological—and thus taphonomic—complexity, archaeological and bioarchaeological studies of foodways in the Central Andes must carefully consider sampling design and preservation bias. In other settings, paleodiets have been assessed from secondary deposits, such as building fill. However, while such findings are unquestionably valuable, just what windows do they in fact open about diet? Secondary deposit data are likely skewed or incomplete in some key ways. In other settings, sampling design may have been opportunistic or otherwise randomized, missing kitchens, middens, and contemporaneous activity areas vital to this task. While macro-­ remains have been long studied, such perspectives do need to be complemented by assessments of the microbotanical/zooarchaeological record as well along with the chemical traces of foods such as starch grain analysis (e.g., Duke et al. 2018). Beyond taphonomy, researchers must further consider differential and preferential forces at play involving formation processes. Some food remains were burned as they were disposed, and carbonization favors preservation. Other strategies for small-scale garbage control do not, such as cleanup by domesticated dogs, Muscovy ducks, and guinea pigs, forever removing those traces from the archaeological record. Seaweed was consumed in its entirety (Masuda 1985) and would leave no

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sign of its presence behind at all; neither would small fish such as anchovies that were slow-cooked and consumed whole, leaving no bones behind (Shimada 1994a, b). Researchers must also be clear as to what processes they are aiming to study in these archaeological contexts. Erickson (2006) emphasizes the need to clarify “intensification” versus “extensification” of local landscapes in reconstructing the scope and type of agricultural practices. Archaeologists and bioarchaeologists often discuss intensification of agricultural production related to population growth, urbanism, and growth of complex polities and states. However, intensification refers to a sophisticated set of techniques to maximize production in a sustainable fashion, irrespective of the size of a given farm. Expanding the size of fields, irrigation networks, storage facilities, and exchange networks is a process of extensification, distinct from intensification. In making this distinction, Erickson also interrogates assumptions that large-scale intensive agriculture requires top-down centralized political structures. He notes that Tiwanaku sites developed raised field agriculture without top-down organization (Erickson 1993) and the Inka later co-opted existing systems of terracing and irrigation rather than constructing their own (Erickson 2006). Archaeological studies of agriculture in antiquity such as these argue against Boserup’s (1965) proposed Law of Least Effort that was echoed by Sahlins (1972). Instead, this research is more in line with ethnographic work by Netting (1993) and others who argue that most societies produce surpluses beyond the domestic sphere without the pressure or motivation of centralized elites. Another important distinction in studying ancient foodways is that between subsistence regimes—how food was acquired or produced, what resources were ubiquitous versus rare—and dietary consumption, what individuals actually ate. Regarding the latter, human skeletal isotopic and oral health data would represent some of the most direct general observations of dietary composition. For example, Berryman (2010:298) identified high frequencies of oral pathology among females at Tiwanaku suggesting substantial consumption of maize but which were not mirrored by carbon isotope values. Instead, Berryman argues that women were likely masticating corn for chicha production, but not consuming either maize or chicha de jora/maíz in significant quantities. Within overarching subsistence regimes, there are often divergent diets associated with those of high status versus non-elite. Bioarchaeological studies of the Moche provide one example. Oral health patterns are starkly different between the elite individuals interred at Sipán (Verano 1997a; Ham et al. 2017) and Moche commoners (Verano 1997b; Klaus 2018). All oral pathological conditions are quite rare among Moche lords, ­suggesting their social power had much to do with a minimal dietary contribution of cariogenic foods such as maize and much greater habitual or daily contributions of non-starchy cultigens, marine resources, and meats. Similarly, Gumerman IV (1997b:117) notes that while north coast elites consumed high-status resources like maize, llama, chilies, and coca, commoners relied more on shellfish and wild plants that grew along irrigation canals. However, commoners attached to elites such as full-time specialists were provisioned more staple finance food (produced by other commoners) by the elites because they would not be producing their own subsistence resources.

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For the north coast in particular, a relatively obscure ethnography of Muchik/ Moche descendant communities provides additional contextual insight into Lambayeque foodways: [The Moche] are the envy of persons from all parts of the coast because of the time and resources they lavish on the consumption of food and liquor. In fact, eating and drinking are their principal relaxation and recreation. ...Although the use of peppers and other “hot” seasonings is common to most of Peru, the food of Moche makes an unusually sharp assault among the taste buds of the novice and even brings tears to the eyes of the initiated. The Mocheros consider the flavoring of the cooking in other areas insipid. (Gillin 1945:44)

The ethnography continues, noting that twentieth-century Moche foodways often featured, in addition to fiery picante (a blend of ají peppers, salt, and aromatics that remains popular throughout Peru today), a number of dishes made from raw fish (ceviches) and copious amounts of chicha de jora (beer brewed from sprouted maize), both the nonalcoholic chicha fresca and the alcoholic chicha madura. Ceviche or other seafood dishes were often accompanied by cooked vegetables including maize, sweet potato, beans, potatoes, and yuca (much as they are today) on communal plates and consumed atop lettuce or other greens. Meats including beef, goat, and chicken were also included in dishes, often boiled but sometimes fried in fat, as were sun-dried cañanes (small lizards). Stews made of meat or fish, maize or rice, and aromatics were also common. In this context, the enjoyment of hot peppers and aromatics such as onions and garlic is significant not only for studying the gustatory qualities of Moche cuisines but the functional qualities as well, as chilies, garlic, and onions contain potent antimicrobial compounds useful in keeping meats and raw seafood from spoiling (Sherman and Billing 1999). Food preparation typically took place in earthenware cookpots over stone fireplaces or adobe stoves, and kitchens included batanes y manos (grinding stones or mortars and pestles) and a variety of storage vessels fashioned from gourds. Water was not often consumed directly but in the form of yerba luiza tea, soups, and especially chicha de jora; strict etiquette meant that hosts and hostesses invariably drank along with their guests, often from a communal gourd vessel called a cojodito. This meant that women who ran chicherias out of their homes—brewing chicha madura and preparing modest midday meals known as causas and selling them locally—experienced intoxication as a frequent occupational hazard. Indeed, adults over 18 years of age consumed in excess of 3 liters per day (Gillen 1945:45–48). Muchik communities also classified foods as “hot” and “cold,” consistent with hot-­cold disease concepts documented in a variety of non-Western medical paradigms (Manderson 1987). As research has continued into diets and foodways across the diverse temporal, ecological, and cultural landscapes of the Andes, it has become clear that the different lines of evidence available are interdependent and must be nested in theories of identity, power, embodied culture, and similar frameworks. A growing number of studies have combined archaeological material culture with analyses of ethnohistorical sources, human remains, and paleoethnobotanical and zooarchaeological assemblages, making linkages to ethnography where appropriate (reviewed in Cuéllar 2013). Together, these datasets have helped to characterize some of the

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Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes

major socioeconomic transitions in the region. A diachronic picture of diet over several thousand years across the Central Andes in general, and the north coast of Peru in particular, is now beginning to emerge, and some of the findings are quite revelatory. Broadly speaking, the ancient Central Andes saw the development of “regional flavors,” mediated as much by cultural preferences and structures of meaning as by local ecologies and landscapes (Piperno 2011:279). This regional variation is all the more significant when one considers the long history of vertical archipelagos (Murra 1980), horizontal archipelagos (Shimada 1982), and other kin-based exchange networks and redistributive systems throughout the highlands and coastal lowlands alike (Murra 1980; Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 1966). Llamas by the hundreds or even thousands transported goods along exchange routes connected by expansive road networks (Acosta in Porras Barrenechea 1986:383, cited in Coe 1994:171) established long before the Inka rose to power in the 15th century. Importantly, relationships between subsistence regimes and cultural complexity are multifacteted through time and across different regions. Yet, there was what could be called the increasing politicization and socialization of food during the first millennium CE (sensu Hastorf and Johannessen 2016) where food functioned as social glue, foundations of group identity, vectors of ethnicity, embodiments of community, and expressions of power. This is especially evident with the rise and consolidation of states including the Tiwanaku (Bermann 1994; Wright et al. 2003), Wari (Goldstein 2003; Kellner and Schoeninger 2008), Chimú (Cutright 2014), and Inka (D’Altroy 2000; Hastorf and Johannessen 1993; Malpass and Alconini 2010). These studies indicate not just shifts in subsistence but in the ways that food served to symbolize and mediate between power dynamics. For example, Hastorf’s (1996) seminal isotopic work in the Upper Mantaro valley indicates increased consumption of C4 resources—most likely maize—in the tissues of anatomically male skeletons relative to those of females between the Late Intermediate Period (1100–1476 CE) and Inka-­dominated Late Horizon (1476–1532 CE). Hastorf interprets this divergence as increased consumption of maize by men in the form of chicha de jora/maíz given archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence that women were the likely brewers of chicha, these results suggest increasing male presence in feasts, other public spaces, and positions of prestige, consuming a high-status beverage that was made, but not shared, by women. This study echoes Silverblatt (1987) and others who argue that increasing Inka control produced a gendered hierarchy of value that is most materially visible in shifting patterns of consumption. Furthermore, this study underscores the importance of food in exercising state power, particularly along axes of reciprocity and feasting, which have a long history in the Central Andes. Feasts are important tools in the construction, maintenance, propagation, manipulation, and even subversion of socioeconomic and political relationships (Swenson 2006). Gumerman IV’s (2010) syntheses of the evidence of Moche feasting from the Chicama and Moche valleys indicate the presence of work-party feasts, life cycle feasts, and funerary feasts (as one kind of life cycle feast). Moche work-party feasts were relatively small-scale affairs, likely involving mid- or lower-level lords mobilizing labor services in exchange for elite-sponsored food

3  Theorizing Foodways in Andean Antiquity

25

and drink (Chicha de jora) and camelid meat were the primary foci of such feasts. Yet, as Gumerman (2010) argues, this was done on a fairly small scale. The evidence of large Moche feasts, even at the Huacas de Moche, remain minimal. Using food as a tool to foster social solidarity, alliances, and reciprocity also extended quite naturally to funerary rituals. Gumerman IV’s study of the Las Tinajas funerary platform flanked by two large cemeteries at the El Brujo Complex is enlightening. There, large-scale super-communal food preparation involved a diverse array of fauna (camelids, bony fish, shellfish, marine mammals, and birds) along with a wide range of cultigens (principally maize and accompanied by guava, squash, and chili peppers) and wild herbaceous plants. Much of this food was no doubt intended to be consumed by the living participants in a funerary feast, but some of this food was also provisioned to the dead—particularly agricultural products, some camelid body parts, and at least at Pacatnamú, frequent offerings of seaweed (Gumerman IV 1997a; Gumerman IV 2010). The food for the dead clearly differed from that of the living in its more selective scope. Funerary foods were likely imbued with symbolisms involving active creation of social ties and reciprocity between the living and the dead, notions of feeding the ancestors, and perhaps even vegetal metaphors of the fertility of the dead (Klaus and Tam 2015).

3.1  Eating Under Spanish Rule Archaeological and ethnohistorical research suggests that Andean foodways under Spanish Colonial rule were distinct from those in other Spanish colonies. In contrast to the tropical environments of much of Mesoamerica, southeastern North America, northeastern South America, and the Caribbean, many Andean environments and climates were not entirely alien when compared to those in the Iberian peninsula and elsewhere in Southern Europe. Consequently, Spanish herds and crops flourished in the Andes and were imported wholesale (Cuéllar 2013); ranches for cattle, sheep, and goats, wineries, and fields of Old World cereals abounded in fertile lowland and highland valleys, connected to Pacific coastal ports. In contrast to Spanish settlements in tropical regions, indigenous Andean communities were more likely to incorporate European crops and meats in their diets, whether willingly or by compulsion (Kennedy and VanValkenburgh 2016:95–96) (Fig. 1). As noted above, consumption of quinoa was denigrated as a symbol of backwardness for centuries following Spanish colonization, as was consumption of cuy and maritime resources (Coe 1994). Consequently, indigenous communities often adopted European foods such as barley over quinoa and poultry over cuy (Cuéllar 2013). However, the ­adoption of barley did not alleviate stigma directed by Spaniards and Peruvian Creoles at indigenous communities. Instead, barley joined quinoa as a low-status “Indian” food despite being nutritionally far superior (Jamieson and Sayre 2010; Weismantel 1989). Similarly, archaeological evidence suggests an overall decline in chicha production during the Colonial Period as the brew lost its political capital in the face of Spanish domination (Jennings and Bowser 2009),

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Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes

Fig. 1  Drawing 204. The Royal Administrator and His Low-Status Dinner Guests: The Mestizo, The Mulatto, and the Tributary Indian. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980[1615]:509)

which likely disproportionately disenfranchised the indigenous women who brewed it (Allen 2002). In the remote Bolivian mining town of Tarapaya near Potosí, Spanish settlers imported sheep, goats, and chicken from lower elevations and consumed them alongside marine and lacustrine fish, despite the greater avail-

4 Conclusion

27

ability and accessibility of camelids and cuy (deFrance 2003). Here, deFrance interprets this reliance on Old World animal products as a signifier of status, noting that indigenous women quickly adopted European meats and preparation styles despite continuing to serve them on indigenous ceramics. In the northern coastal Zaña valley site of Carrizales, Kennedy and Van Valkenburgh (2016) compare faunal assemblages from a Spanish Colonial reducción (planned indigenous town) with an earlier sector dating to the Early Intermediate Period (200 BCE–600 CE). Their results suggest a significant shift from consumption of fish and shellfish with some game and camelids to meat from hunted birds and European poultry, goats, and sheep. Importantly, the presence of whales and pinnipeds in the Colonial context corresponds to historical records suggesting that indigenous households shouldering the burden of oppressive Colonial tributary processes engaged in shoreline scavenging rather than traditional fishing (Kennedy and VanValkenburgh 2016). In substantive ways, therefore, Spanish presence served to alter local foodways through the inclusion/imposition of foreign foods and renegotiation of value for both indigenous and European comestibles. However, the adoption of Spanish cuisines and European foods in Colonial Peru was not universal. In an analysis of faunal remains from the doctrina (a conversion-oriented, evangelical settlement) of Malata in the highland Colca valley, deFrance et  al. (2016) interpret remarkably little change in indigenous foodways despite Spanish colonization and imposition. Instead, faunal assemblages suggest that the highland indigenous communities being indoctrinated to Christianity and European social mores continued to rely on traditional camelid (llama and alpaca) pastoralism. The fact that there was no faunal evidence of European livestock further suggests that the Spanish settlers at the doctrina also consumed local camelids, while material culture and iconography indicate a local tribute economy based in part on wool textiles. Similarly, deFrance’s (1996) zooarchaeological analysis at four wineries in the southern coastal Moquegua valley points to pastoralism and consumption of llama meat as well as beef and mutton by Spanish colonists and a dominance of Andean camelids, cuy, and marine foods at the nearby indigenous village of Torata Alta.

4  Conclusion The anthropology of food and foodways is rich and complex and provides a fertile foundation for understanding the relationships between eating and other fundamental aspects of lived experience in both ethnographic and archaeological contexts. In Andean South America, a growing corpus of archaeological and bioarchaeological research is generating new insights into the role of food in shaping identities and the practice of everyday life. However, there is still much about the effects of Spanish colonialism in the Central Andes that remains unknown and undertheorized, particularly the intersection between bottom-up analyses of individual diets and dialectics of how top-down Colonial policies

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Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes

localized in indigenous communities. As Cuellar (2013:151) notes, “Analysis of quotidian food habits can help reveal subtle forms of building and maintaining social hierarchies,” making food an ideal locus for studying the negotiation of habitus in times of disruption and transformation. In subsequent chapters, we revisit these theoretical foundations in examining patterns of dietary composition and diet-related stress in the Lambayeque Valley Complex.

Ecological and Archaeological Contexts

Archaeologists, are, in the true sense of the term, ‘garbage hounds.’ Shimada 1994a: 181.

As the previous chapter demonstrates, sociocultural theory holds rich and nuanced perspectives for interpreting foodways in antiquity. As food is both universal to everyday life and simultaneously serves to structure biosocial systems imbued with meaning and cultural significance, the study of food is a powerful tool in understanding cultures through time and space. In order to unpack the myriad manifestations of those universal relationships, however, it is crucial to fully situate the foodways of a given group against a backdrop of available resources, climatic conditions, exchange networks, and other variables. Therefore, this chapter provides the contextual grounding of this work in describing the ecological, geographic, and cultural contexts of the Lambayeque Valley Complex. On the western coast of South America, the Lambayeque Valley Complex of northern coastal Peru is unique among the dozens of Andean desert coast valleys (Figs. 1 and 2). It stands out in physiogeographic and ecological terms and the history of cultural developments in the area was without parallel. As Paul Kosok (1965, 147) observed: The Lambayeque-Leche-Motupe Complex is the largest and most complicated irrigation and population unit on the coast of Peru. Everything related to it is complicated: topography, river systems, canal systems, administrative methods, distribution of population centers, and, we might add, methods of reconstructing its past…[but] this three-valley unit has been neglected by most archaeologists.

In the intervening decades following Kosok’s visit to the region, the archaeology of Lambayeque has grown appreciably, especially since the late 1980s. Modern research thoroughly validates Kosok’s early impressions but also has also produced discoveries that were unimaginable just 50 years ago. The human occupation of the north coast of Peru dates back to approximately 14,500 years ago (Dillehay 2017), and for the last 4000 years, it was something of a “reactor” of complex cultures that engaged in a generally increasing trajectory of © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B. L. Turner, H. D. Klaus, Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42614-9_3

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Ecological and Archaeological Contexts

Fig. 1  Map of the Lambayeque Valley Complex, highlighting the respective locations of The Ventarrón Archaeological Complex (1), the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological Complex (2), Mórrope (3), and Eten (4) from which the skeletal samples studied in this book have been excavated. (Map by Haagen Klaus)

Ecological and Archaeological Contexts

31

Fig. 2  Chronological periods for the major cultural phases on Peru’s north coast. Differing forms and tempos of regional developments resulted in broadly comparable (but regionally distinctive) cultural and temporal phases. (Illustration by Haagen Klaus)

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Ecological and Archaeological Contexts

technological, social, economic, and religious sophistication. Following the Spanish conquest, Lambayeque played an important (and rather historically underappreciated) role in the economic functioning of Colonial Peru. Given the deeply contextual nature of third-wave bioarchaeology on practical, philosophical, and epistemic levels (e.g., Buikstra 2006), our approach is to situate the reconstruction of Lambayeque Valley Complex foodways within its natural, temporal, and cultural frameworks—without which bioarchaeological data are simply patterns of data devoid of meaning. Here, we describe the ecological setting and provide a basic overview of regional pre-Hispanic cultural contexts. The following chapter (“Pre-Hispanic North Coast Cultures and Foodways”) provides the second half of this contextualization with an overview of the postcontact adaptive transition in the Lambayeque region.

1  The Natural Setting The Central Andes represents one of the most dynamic and diverse regions on Earth. However, it would seem on many levels that the Central Andes is among the most unlikely settings for the development of complex societies. There are a wide range of ecological constraints and challenges, including many that are hostile to life itself. Instead, human beings not only established a foothold in the region, but arguably, creative human manipulation of these environments provided the foundations upon which emerged cultures that are among the most complex societies of the premodern history anywhere on Earth. The 7000-km-long Andes mountain chain has been produced over the last 50 million years. The subduction of the Nasca and Antarctic Plates under the South American plate has slowly crumpled and lifted the seafloor to produce some of the highest peaks on the planet. The landmass is divided into the Northern Andes (extending from Venezuela to Ecuador), the Central Andes (approximating all of modern Peru and most of Bolivia), and the Southern Andes (which turn westward south of Lake Titicaca and run to the southernmost points of Argentina and Chile). Several features set the Central Andes (0–6798 meters above sea level) apart from other areas of South America. The region is densely populated and cultivated. Extraordinary environmental diversity results from extreme horizontally compacted elevation changes. As one ascends east from the arid coast 200–250 kilometers inland, one passes through rugged, treeless cis-Andean foothills and mountains, temperate intermontane basins, high-altitude grasslands, and imposing peaks. Transects of the landmass from the north coast to the south coast of Peru show that on the northern north coast, foothills are lower and farther inland and river valleys are less circumscribed by the mountains. The Andean slope is also more gradual, and mountains reach a maximum elevation of only 4500 meters above sea level (masl) (Shimada 1994a, 41). Perhaps most importantly, the interaction of the tropically heated Central Andean landmass with the immediately adjacent cold offshore waters creates a narrow strip of arid desert coastline, punctuated by some 40 coastal

2  The North Coast of Peru

33

river valleys. This thoroughly unique zone presented opportunities and resources to sustain the initial Late Pleistocene human colonization and the later unfolding of complex societies. Broadly, the ecosystems of the Central Andes can be sorted into coastal deserts, the highland sierra, and the tropical forests of the Amazon. The cold-current upwelling of the Peruvian, Chilean, and Ecuadorian coasts has produced rich fisheries and salt deposits in coastal regions. In the highland sierra, the altitudinal gradients of the Andean cordillera result in horizontally stratified ecological zones, each of which permits the cultivation of different resources. Coca and chili peppers are cultivated along lower altitudes, while corn, legumes, gourds, and grains such as kiwicha and quinoa flourish in the temperate quechua zone (2280–3200 masl). The many varieties of potato and other tubers indigenous to the Andes are cultivable in the suni zone (3200–3960 masl) (National Research Council 1989). The high elevations of the puña and altiplano (3960–5030 masl) are too marginal for most food crops, but the abundant scrub grasses are used to pasture llamas and alpacas (the only large domesticates in the Western Hemisphere) as well as wild vicuñas. For millennia, Andean peoples have circumvented the limited horizontal space for agricultural fields on valley floors by digging agricultural terraces into the slopes of mountains, opening up a substantial amount of arable land for agriculture, and cultivating crops in multiple ecological zones. Intensive irrigation of highland rivers has created viable agricultural land in arid areas such as the coast and drier areas of the sierra (Moseley 1992). In the hyperarid coastal deserts, plants receive their primary water sources from either the dense fog coming in from the Pacific (garúa) or from glacial rivers and streams from the highlands from which some irrigation canals extend their reach. Other locations have geologic sources of water such as springs. Agricultural production on the Peruvian north coast, which boasts some of the most arid deserts in the world, required irrigation to capture water from rivers running through many coastal valleys. While small-ditch irrigation is visible in the Zaña valley by about 4000 BP (Dillehay 2011b), larger-scale canal irrigation is apparent in multiple north coastal river valleys by about 1000 BP, commensurate with increases in population size, agricultural production, and social complexity (Pearsall 2008).

2  The North Coast of Peru The often-cited ecological model of the “Three Worlds of the Andes” would see most of the 2400-kilometer-long Peruvian coastline as a single, treeless desert interrupted by roughly triangular river valleys. This vision perhaps only works on the most generalized perspectives (i.e., the view from low-Earth orbit). Careful study and thoughtful observation of the environment demonstrate that each of the north coast valleys possesses ecogeographically distinct characteristics including critically important microenvironments that have played key roles in human adaptations in the Andes.

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The north coast of Peru spans over 400 linear kilometers of coastline. The hyperarid Sechura Desert defines the northern boundary of the north coast, while its southern edges are drawn at the margins of approximately 60 kilometer stretch of active sand dunes and mountains that abut the Pacific coast just south of the Casma drainage. Within this expanse, the north coast of Peru features 14 river valleys that run from the Andean piedmont in the east to the ocean in the west. From north to south, they are the Olmos, Motupe, La Leche, Lambayeque, Reque, Zaña, Jequetepeque, Chicama, Moche, Virú, Chao, Santa, Nepeña, and Casma valleys. During the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, paleoenvironmental data reveal a markedly different Andean world than that of today. The coast enjoyed far greater precipitation, grasslands and tropical forests were abundant, and megafauna and ancestral camelids were the dominant forms of animal life (Craig 1985; Dillehay 2011a). At the end of the most recent glacial maximum, the environment began to change radically. The most significant transformations were a rising sea level and an eastward migration of the Antarctic Peruvian current, which initiated a process of coastal desertification. Today, the westernmost ecological zone of the north coast of Peru is a relatively cool and barren coastal desert that receives only a few millimeters of annual precipitation. The Peruvian current quite literally sucks heat out of the equatorial coastal air. Then, the cool, damp ocean air passes over the warm landmass to create strong afternoon sea breezes that move inland filling in convection lows. Coupled with a low temperature gradient, the air increases its capacity to hold onto moisture until regional trade wind patterns push cloud formations inland. This effect falls off over terrain higher than 1500 masl to promote precipitation (Johnson 1976). The result of this temperature inversion can leave the coast virtually rainless for years. Further inland, yunga regions extend to the upper reaches of the coastal valleys up to 2500 masl. Regular seasonal rainfall in yunga zones and at higher altitudes is the source of water for the coastal river valleys. These cis-Andean slopes are noted for year-round sunshine and warmth (typically between 20° and 27 °C), valuable cultigens such as fruits, peppers, and coca, and mineral resources including copper, iron oxides, and silver (Shimada 1994a, 37). Archaeological evidence points to the attractiveness of the yunga to both coastal and highland groups. Contemporaneous Moche, Recuay, and Cajamarca societies may have contested control of the region (Shimada 1982; Topic and Topic 1983). However, paramount concern for control of the yunga was likely for access to the principle intakes for the “Maximum Elevation Canals” (MECs) that fed all the downstream canals ultimately determining the extent of irrigation in a coastal valley. The inland location of the MEC is fundamental to define where a coastal valley starts in the east. Northern and southern margins of a valley were likely demarcated by valley edges, and major gravity-fed artificial canals (Netherly 1984). Kosok (1965, 10, 26) perceptively noted that in coastal Andean deserts, water is sine qua non of human existence. A secondary effect of the Peru (or Humbolt) current involves how the cold Antarctic current creeps northward, just offshore, at a mere 0.3 knots. This generates stable temperatures replicating those much further out to sea. While cool water temperatures drive the desertification of the coast, they also create rich sources of

3  The Lambayeque Valley Complex

35

marine life that flourish just off the beach. Prevailing southerly winds shear off the surface waters creating a phenomena known as an “Ekman Spiral,” where cold water, low in dissolved oxygen but high in nitrogen and phosphorous, can rise to the surface from depths of 300 meters (Cane 1986). Constant upwelling of nutrients sustains a gargantuan population of phytoplankton that is the foundation of an ecological pyramid of unparalleled biotic diversity. Many thousands of species of fish, shellfish, marine mammal, and bird species depend on this foundation. Coastal Peruvian waters represent one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Both ancient and modern Peruvians have exploited these resources to the point where marine resources played key roles in the development of Andean social complexity (Moseley 1975; Moseley 1992; see also Sandweiss 2008; Dillehay 2017) as discussed further in the chapter “Spanish Colonization and Subsistence of the Colonized”. Modern industrial fishing in the late twentieth century led to near collapse of these fisheries (Idyll 1973). Other resources include the understudied consumption of algae and seaweed by coastal Peruvians (Masuda 1985) and the annual production of thousands of tons of guano as fertilizer produced by feasting seabirds that nest on offshore islands and coastal locales (and which also returns appreciable quantities of nitrogen and phosphorous to the sea).

3  The Lambayeque Valley Complex Within this distinct north coastal region, the Lambayeque Valley Complex is yet further distinctive. As many of the valleys on the north coast of Peru, it is a low-­ gradient coastal valley region featuring fertile alluvia in the valley bottomlands. Unlike other coastal valleys that have just one relatively narrow river drainage, this region is considered a “valley complex” as it contains five different river valleys that blend seamlessly into one another and were integrated by a single pre-Hispanic hydrological network by the late first millennium CE. From north to south, these rivers are the Motupe, La Leche, Lambayeque, Reque, and Zaña. The Lambayeque Valley Complex represents a transitional geomorphologic zone between the narrow circumscribed valleys to the south and the deserts to the north. Its topography is dominated by a triangular pediplain delimited by two branches of the Cordillera Occidental. The northern branch runs roughly northeast-southwest north of Chongoyape and Pátapo where it abruptly inflects toward the La Leche drainage. The relatively unbroken southern branch runs from the highlands to Cerro de Reque (Shimada 1976, 24). As the mountains recede more than 50 kilometers inland, the highland Chancay river represents the immediate source of the Lambayeque and Reque rivers along with the water diverted into the river-sized Taymi and Collique canals. The physiogeography of the Lambayeque Valley Complex is ideal for extensive irrigation agriculture. The interconnected La Leche-Lambayeque plains alone offer some 136,000 hectares of arable land. During the region’s pre-Hispanic cultural apogee from about 1000 to 1375  CE, Kosok (1965) reasonably estimated the

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Lambayeque Valley Complex contained one-third of the entire human population and one-third of the total amount of arable land contained within the entire Peruvian coast.

3.1  Microenvironments in the Lambayeque Region The Lambayeque Valley Complex is an ideal setting to illustrate microenvironmental variation in a coastal Peruvian setting. The region contains an array of rocky and sandy beaches, deserts, forests, expansive cultivated plains, pastures, and dry pampas nestled among Andean foothills and larger inland mountains. The microenvironmental perspective is also the most relevant way to perceive of Lambayeque ecology. First, a relatively treeless littoral zone encompasses a narrow stretch of shore which itself varies. The shore near Morro de Eten is narrow and rocky, while in areas such as La Caleta de San José, Santa Rosa, and Pimentel, the beach is wide and sandy. At the mouth of the Reque river just north of Puerto Eten, a unique lagoon and marsh microenvironment supports a surprisingly biodiverse range of flora and fauna as well as agricultural field systems. Most littoral zone populations are engaged in a maritime fishing economy, though it must be noted that beyond fish, mollusks and sea mammals (seals, sea lions) are major resources (see Chap. 5). Salt is also a major product of the littoral zone (Shimada 1976, 28). Second, coastal deserts are characterized by active and semi-stabilized sand dunes east of the littoral zone. Some desert stretches reach 10–20 kilometers inland such as in the areas north and west of the city of Lambayeque (including Mórrope) and the extensive undulating dunes between Reque and Mocupe in the Zaña drainage. In the 1970s, years of irrigation water shortages triggered invasion of active sand dunes into cultivation fields around Mórrope (Shimada 1976: 29). Coastal desert vegetation is sparse or absent in these areas but can include low shrubs, grasses, vine-like rhizomatous plants, and Tillandsia which is an epiphytic plant that extracts moisture from the air (Shimada 1976: 29). Due to geologic uplift (elevations range from 5 to 100 meters ASL) and resultant poor drainage, the coastal desert zone between Ferreñafe and Mórrope is highly saline and silted in with deposits of clay, salt, and gypsum. Cultivation in the coastal desert zone is very minimal. For instance, Mórrope is the last locality to receive water from the La Leche River, and water is always scarce. When sufficient water is available every 6–7 years, corn and alfalfa are grown, while cotton is the primary crop during the dry years (Bachman 1921, 141). Third, the monte zone is a local term referring to scrub growth microenvironments containing algarrobo (Prosopis chilensis, juliflora, and limensis) (Willey 1953, 17), faique (Acacia macracantha), vichayo (Capparis ovalifolia), zapote (Capparis angulata), and paloverde (Parkinsonia aculeata) trees. The clustered (patch-like) distribution of these trees has long been shaped by the impact of cultivation and cutting since the pre-Hispanic era. Algarrobo trees are a major resource that bears large, edible sweet fruits (also used to produce the alcoholic beverage

3  The Lambayeque Valley Complex

37

algarrobina) and has been employed as fodder for livestock. Algarrobo trees are the principle source of firewood, charcoal fuel, and non-adobe construction material. It is quite likely that the monte zone experienced cycles of contraction and expansion and may have reached its historical minimum size the era of all-time maximum cultivation during the Chimú era. Following Inka conquest, a rebound probably transpired as parts of the valley fell into disuse, but by the Colonial era, pressure was placed on monte zones as it was exploited for animal feed and the demand for firewood as far south as Lima. Fourth, semitropical dry forest microenvironments are present in the central La Leche drainage, much of it today within the boundaries of the Pómac Forest National Historic Sanctuary. The Pómac Forest is densely inhabited by hundreds of species of birds such as parrots, anteaters, pumas, iguanas, boa constrictors, squirrels, foxes, and multiple varieties of scorpions, wasps, bees, and spiders including tarantulas (Fernández 2004:8–14; Suárez 1985:37–48; also Shimada 1982). In the upper reaches of the La Leche drainage, the forests of Colán and Chaparrí are composed primarily of espingo trees that serve as habitats for white-tailed deer, spectacled bears, peccaries, and pumas. Fifth, riverine microenvironments play a major role in the Lambayeque Valley Complex. Riverine zones involve the narrow strips of continuously forming rich alluvial floodplains and terraces that are themselves remnants of older floodplains incised by the rivers that originally formed them (Shimada 1976:36). These zones can vary in size but generally are no wider than 2 kilometers. The Chancay river is the name of the natural river that merges with the Cumbil river (also known as the Maichil or Llonquinua river) some 15 kilometers east of Chongoyape. The amount of water passing through these zones is dependent on the time of year, and assuming normal rainfall, the Chancay river may discharge 150–250 million cubic meters of water during the rainy season as the riverine zone is temporarily inundated and enriched (Shimada 1976:38). Riverine zones provide large cane (Caña brava), sand, and gravel for construction purposes, along with freshwater fish, mollusks, and large crayfish. Riverine microenvironments can also spring up in irrigation canals many kilometers from the rivers themselves, such as along the various drains and ditches between Ferreñafe and Lambayeque which support a wide range of flora and fauna including ducks, shorebirds, and foxes. Intentional planting and cultivation of a variety of tropical fruit trees are also practiced along the drains and may include banana, papaya, mango, plum, chirimoya, and guava (Shimada 1976:41). Lambayeque’s riverine zones can be divided into three distinct zones. The A-zone of the Valle Viejo (old or lower valley) corresponds roughly to what Ramírez (1974) regarded as the roughly triangular region east of Chiclayo—the prime alluvial land intensely exploited by historical sugarcane haciendas. The B-zone of the Valle Viejo covers the alluvial lands west of Chiclayo delimited by coastal desert and littoral zones. Ramírez (1974) added the Valle Nuevo, an extension of the broad coastal floodplain north of Chiclayo. During the Colonial Period, haciendas occupied the prime land of the Valle Viejo, while indigenous Muchik peoples were resettled into adjacent areas characterized by poor access to water, fertile soils, and

38

Ecological and Archaeological Contexts

other resources (Kosok 1965:151). In the B-zone of the Valle Viejo, small-scale but highly diversified agriculture is practiced by small individual land-holding farmers, yet a cash crop orientation is very evident. In the late twentieth century, nearly 20,000 hectares of land in the Valle Bajo and Nuevo have been dedicated exclusively to sugarcane and rice production (Shimada 1976:43–44). The sixth and final microenvironment in the Lambayeque Valley Complex is the valley flanks. This zone represents the transition between the fertile bottomlands and the Andean foothills. These are marginal lands appear to have been a primary focus of pre-Hispanic settlement. The flanks are generally sloping, barren surfaces overlain by gravel, boulders, and sand. As the flora is dominated by a variety of dispersed subtropical trees and scrub, flank zones are active settings of livestock herding. In fact, vegetation is rarely permitted to reach its natural maximum extent due to human and animal activity (Shimada 1976:54, 62). The major quebradas (canyons) of the Lambayeque region are found among the flanks in the southern and eastern margins of the valley. Quebrada Montería, for example, originates near Chongoyape and extends east for some 20 kilometers to serve as the primary natural connector between the Lambayeque region and the upper Zaña valley. The large pediplain of the Pampa de Chaparrí (once a major center of farming but currently uncultivated and completely depopulated) is the route from the middle Lambayeque valley to the middle La Leche valley to the north. As a concluding point, Schaedel’s (1985) concept of pre-Hispanic Andean etnías, or ethnic groups, is closely linked to environmental variation and local cultural adaptations. It is constructive to consider as Schaedel did that in late pre-Hispanic times and early Colonial times, the Lambayeque Valley Complex appears to have been organized and divided into at least seven major ethnic-political units. Each unit was composed of polities around modern Reque, Eten-Monsefú, Pátapo or Cinto, Collique, Ferreñafe, Lambayeque, and Chongoyape, while to the north, La Leche polities included Jayanca, Túcume, and possibly Mochumí. Moreover, each of these polities inhabited distinct but complementary microenvironments.

4  Central Andean Food Resources Adequately describing the food resources or “menu” available to communities throughout the Central Andes depends equally on understanding the complex ecological landscapes and the exchange/redistribution networks that linked communities within regions and across considerable distances. In the chapters “Pre-Hispanic North Coast Cultures and Foodways” and “Spanish Colonization and Subsistence of the Colonized,” we discuss specific cultural phases on the north coast. Here, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of known food resources available to Central Andean communities and the north coast of Peru in particular. In the Lambayeque Valley Complex in particular, Klaus (2008, 101–103) summarizes paleobotanical evidence of plant use during a number of pre-Hispanic periods (Table  1) and zooarchaeological evidence of terrestrial and aquatic animal use

4  Central Andean Food Resources

39

Table 1  Paleobotanical evidence of plant exploitation in the pre-Hispanic Lambayeque Valley Complex

Plant Remains Annona muricata (guanabana) Annona cherimolia (chirimoya) Arachis hypogaea (peanut) Campomanesia sp. (palillo) Canavalia sp. (Bean) Capparis ovalifolia (vichayo) Capparis angulata (zapote) Capsicum annuum (ají) Chenopodium sp. (quinua) Curcubita sp. (squash) Erythroxylon coca (coca) Gossypium sp. (cotton) Gynerium sagittatum (cane) Inga feuillei (pacae) Largenaria siceraria (gourd) Lucuma bifera (lúcuma) Persia americana (avadcado) Phaseolus valgaris (common bean) Prosopis chilensis (algarrrobo) Psidium guajava (guava) Zea maize (corn)

Zaña Valley Sapamé 1300– 2500– 1800 B.C. 600 B.C. •

Huaca Sialupe, Cholope, Pampa Grande, A.D. AD 1300– 900–1050/1100 600 B.C. 550–750 •

• • •

•

•

• •

•

• • •

•

• • • •

• • •

•

•

•

•

•

• • • • •

•

•

•

• •

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

• •

• •

• •

• •

Zaña Valley data are taken from Dillehay et al. (2004); complete list of Sapamé, Cholope, and Pampa Grande data in Shimada (1982). The Huaca Sialupe data are only a partial list of subsistence remains identified by Goldstein (2007) which include over 75 diverse taxa recovered archaeologically in 2001 and identified by subsequent ethnographic study

(Table 2). Given the likelihood of regional and extraregional exchange networks, however, Lambayeque menus may have been even broader. Staple foods included chenopods such as quinoa, the many varieties of potatoes (Solanum spp.), sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), and related tubers; starchy roots on the coast included raqacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza) and achira (Canna edulis), all of which are present in coastal archaeological sites during the late Preceramic

40

Ecological and Archaeological Contexts

Table 2  Zooarchaeological evidence of pre-Hispanic faunal exploitation, Lambayeque Valley Complex

Animal Remains. Mammal/reptile Bufo marinus/ blombergi (toad) Canis familiaris (domestic dog) Cavia porcellus (guinea pig) Constrictor constrictor (boa constrictor) Cricetidae (rat) Dama viginianus (white-tailed deer) Dricrodon guttulatum (lizard) Didelphidae sp. (oppossum) Dusicyon sp. (fox) Lagudium peruanum (chinchilla) Lama glama/paco (llama/alpaca) Otariidae or Phocidae (seal) Ranidae (toad) Birds Anatidae (duck) Cathartidae (black vulture) Columbidae (dove) Phalacrocorax sp. (comorant) Psittacidae (macaw) Sphenistidae (jack-ass penguin) Tinamidae (tinamou) Fish Carangidae (pampano) Carcharhinidae (requiem shark) Cupeida (sardine) Mugilidae (mullet)

Sapamé & Cholope, 1300–600 B.C.

HPBG A.D. 550–750

Pampa Grande, Huaca Sialupe, AD A.D. 550–750 900–1050/1100 •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

• •

•

•

• •

•

•

• •

•

•

•

•

• • • • •

•

•

• • • • • • • • (continued)

4  Central Andean Food Resources

41

Table 2 (continued)

Animal Remains. Myliobatidae (ray) Pomadasyidae (grunt) Rhinobatidae (angel shark) Sardinops sp. (herring) Sciaenidae (drum) Sphyrnidae (hammerhead shark) Syluriformes (sleepers) Portunidae (crabs) Gastropod Aequipecten sp. (scallop) Cantharus sp. (whelk) Conus fergusoni (cone shell) Donax peruvianus (wedge clam) Mexicardia procera (cockles/ heart clam) Nassarius sp. (mud snail) Olivella columellaris (olive shell) Polinices sp. (moon snail) Semele corrugate (semele clam) Spondylus princes (thorny oyster) Thaididae (dog winkle) Tegula sp. (Tegula top shell) Turbo sp. (turban shell) Scutalus sp. (land snail) Planorbidae (pond snail)

Sapamé & Cholope, 1300–600 B.C. •

Adapted from Shimada (1982)

HPBG A.D. 550–750

Pampa Grande, Huaca Sialupe, AD A.D. 550–750 900–1050/1100 • • •

• •

• •

• •

•

•

• •

• • •

•

• •

•

•

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

• •

• • •

•

42

Ecological and Archaeological Contexts

period (Pearsall 2008). On the coast, commonly eaten cochayuyo (seaweeds) included Gigartina, Ulva lactuca, and Durvillaea antarctica (Coe 1994,186). Other vegetables available to coastal communities include squashes (Cucurbita maxima and others), which were domesticated 4000–2000 BCE and an abundance of wild greens. In coastal Peru, large lima beans (P. lunatus) were first cultivated around 1000 BCE, while small beans (P. vulgaris) were present by around 300 BCE (Coe 1994:31), and jack bean (Canavalia plagiosperma) was likely first domesticated on the coast between 1750 and 450 BCE (Pearsall 2008). Sweet manioc or yuca, also known as cassava (Manihot esculenta), was domesticated between 800 and 400 BCE (Ezell, et al. 2006). In addition, myriad broken shells littering archaeological sites suggest that peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) were toasted in their shells in coastal Peru by 1100–500 BCE (Kochert, et al. 1996). Fruits included lucuma (Lucuma bifera), described as “insipid” by Cobo (1890–1893 [1653], 2: 23–24), molle or pink peppercorn berries (Schinus molle), passion fruits (Passiflora spp.), pepinos or kachun (Solanum muricatum), algarrobo or pale carob berries (Prosopis pallida), and jicama (Pachyrhizus erosus). One of the most important crops, with both staple and ceremonial significance throughout the Central Andes, is maize (Zea mays). Though the plant was originally domesticated in Mexico from wild Balsas teosinte (van Heerwaarden et al. 2011), it spread naturally to South America where it was cultivated in coastal Ecuador as early as the Preceramic period circa 4000 BCE (Piperno 1988; Zarrillo, et al. 2008). However, maize was likely sparse or absent on the Peruvian north coast until the Initial Period (Pearsall 2008). Zooarchaeological research (deFrance 1996; deFrance 2003; Rosenfeld and Sayre 2016; Sandweiss and Wing 1997) identifies the presence and use of animals in Central Andean diets (see also Cuéllar 2013). The central Andean subsistence landscape is dominated by camelids, both wild, i.e., guanacos (Lama guanicoe) and vicuñas (Vicugna vicugna), and domesticated, i.e., llamas (L. glama) and alpacas (V. pacos). Exploitation of wild camelids is visible throughout the Andes as early as 10,000  BCE, while domesticated camelids appear sometime after 4000  BCE (Mendoni Goñalons and Yacobaccio 2006:229–230). However, excavations on the north coast identify camelids starting in the Formative period and primarily in ritual contexts, suggesting that camelid meat was not an early staple (Stahl 2008). Hunted game, in addition to wild camelids, also included deer (Odocoileus virginianus and Hippocamelus antisensis) and vizcacha (Lagidium peruanum), while the only other domesticated animal in the Andes was the cuy (Cavia porcellus) or guinea pig (Cieza de Léon 1962 [1550]:475). Cuy was likely domesticated from their wild counterparts (C. aperca) sometime after 5000 BP (Sandweiss and Wing 1997: 47), though the timing of their domestication is debated (Stahl 2008). On the coast, fish and shellfish included limpets (Fissurella spp.), mussels (Perumytilus, Semimytilus), chitons (Acanthopleura, Enoplochiton), chanque (Conoplepas sp.), robalo (Sciaena starski), bonito (Sarda sarda), mullets (Mugil), catfish (Galeichthys peruvianus), and small sharks (Mustelus spp.). Even though Peru has an abundance of sea salt and salt deposits, Cobo (1890–1893 [1653], 1: 238–239) noted that meat and fish were not salt-cured for purposes of preserving. Instead, salt was used as a condiment

5 Conclusion

43

while eating, and meat and fish were sun-dried (or freeze-dried if in the highlands). Pedro Pizzaro also described the consumption of lizards, described later by Holmberg (1957) as Dicrodon holmbergi, that were trapped and roasted or dried by communities on the north coast and its islands. They are most commonly consumed when algarrobo pods are ripe, as the lizards congregated around the trees to eat the seeds. Coastal communities also consumed waterfowl such as the Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) (Coe 1994, Ch.12–16), which was likely domesticated sometime during the Formative period in the Amazon basin and introduced through regional exchange (Stahl 2008). Muscovy duck would have represented an important source of dietary fat on the north coast (Rosenfeld 2008:128–9).

5  Conclusion Within this ecological setting, the cultures of the Lambayeque Valley Complex evolved, endured, and thrived over the course of several millennia. Understanding the different environmental opportunities and constraints of these unique coastal landscapes is essential to reconstructing the ways in which communities engaged with the array of available food resources. Moreover, the long history of exchange networks connecting coastal and highland communities (Murra 1972; Rostworowski 1977) meant that diets and foodways in different ecozones may have included resources from either nearby or far-flung regions. Having established this critical context, we now turn to the extensive cultural history of the Lambayeque Valley Complex and the surrounding north coast region and the relationships between cultural development and foodways—from the earliest archaeological evidence of human settlement through the end of the Spanish Colonial Period.

Pre-Hispanic North Coast Cultures and Foodways

Izçӕc ӕn mӕich eix muchik (We are all Muchik). Chero Zurita et al. (2011:84)

The human story of the Lambayeque Valley Complex is unique among the coastal Peruvian river valleys. On one hand, the course of history within its borders in many ways represents a microcosm of the broader trends and developments in Andean prehistory as a whole. This extends from the initial human occupation of the coast to the long and winding Preceramic era and the emergence of multiple complex societies. On the other hand, many of the processes and developments that unfolded in Lambayeque embodied precocious and innovative features that either helped fuel broader regional phenomenon or were on the whole unique, particularly in the last 1500 years of the pre-Hispanic era.

1  F  rom First Settlement to the Growth of Complex Cultures: 12,500–1500 BCE The peopling of Peru’s north coast was until recently argued to have been initiated perhaps 11,500 years ago, but recent findings drawn from the deep stratigraphy of the Huaca Prieta mound on the Chicama valley shore convincingly establish the earliest dates of human occupation to around 14,500 years before present (Dillehay 2017). Generally speaking, the first Andeans and those who lived during the intervening (and quite protracted) Preceramic period remain insufficiently understood. For more than a century, archaeological attention was disproportionally directed toward the resplendent Andean civilizations of late prehistory. It also was assumed little of anthropological consequence occurred in during this intervening epoch. A common vision held that simplistic, homogeneous Andean Paleoindians hunting, foraging, and owing their very existence to the Clovis point tradition diffused from North America (Lynch 1999:222–223). These north coastal peoples have long been © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B. L. Turner, H. D. Klaus, Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42614-9_4

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Pre-Hispanic North Coast Cultures and Foodways

referred to as Piaján hunter-gatherers who produced a distinctive style of fluted projectile points (Chauchaut 2006). Long-term, regional work by Tom Dillehay’s multidisciplinary projects (2011a, b, 2017) in the Zaña and Chicama valleys forces a far more complex and remarkably nuanced rethinking of this period. The time between first settlement and early complex cultures appears to represent the most pioneering, experimental, and precarious eras of Andean history. In Lambayeque itself, Paleoindian or Preceramic sites are virtually unknown. The region certainly contained early populations, but early settlement has not been a major research focus. Preceramic evidence also appears physically ephemeral. All Late Pleistocene littoral sites are under the Pacific Ocean, as sea levels rose following the end of the last glacial maximum pushing the coastline 10–15 km inland to its present location. Practically any lower and mid-valley sites likely would have been lost due to intense pre-Hispanic cultivation and modern development. Junius Bird’s unpublished findings of Piaján-style projectile points found near the Chiclayo International Airport signal a mid-valley presence (Chauchat 2006: 397). On the Pampa de Eten, Alva (1985a, b) described a shell mound associated with lithic artifacts which was later destroyed by mining activities. Based on these findings, the earliest hunters and foragers of the region appear to have consumed diverse plant and animal food sources, from the nutritious seeds of the algarrobo tree to lizards, diverse fish species, rodents, foxes, mollusks, and crustaceans (Chauchat 2006). In other words, these peoples maintained a highly diversified subsistence strategy comparable in concept to many hunter-gatherer societies. Then, a slow, nonlinear process of experimentation with new forms of social organization, food production, and ecological relationships unfolded within these coastal valleys beginning around 8200 BCE. Some 5500 years before present, experimentations with new food-producing approaches, new forms of social relationships, new ontological systems, and a commitment to new ways of life were underway. Early, small canal systems started to come into use, as communal ritual was linked to heterarchically organized communal mound-building projects. Instead of a simple society with little going on for itself, the adaptive transition from foraging to farming was slow, remarkably intricate, and quite nonlinear. Multi-year and multi-site work by Dillehay (2011a, 2017) and colleagues in the Zaña and Chicama valleys has characterized this transition in some of the best-­ documented evidence of early foodways and the subsequent evolution of subsistence economies on the north coast of Peru. South American domesticates emerged from probably five or six primary areas spanning the Andean highlands and Amazonian lowlands (Piperno 2006). On the north coast, all crops were introduced from elsewhere. The first north coast farmers were not inventors of agriculture but rather consumers of this new form of subsistence economy as small-scale horticulturalists. They lived in small, year-round household communities where they grew a variety of cultigens in home garden plots while simultaneously hunting, fishing, and gathering. In the Zaña region, people had developed a generalized forager and transhumant (probably seasonally mobile) lifeway between the coast and adjacent western slopes of the Andes between 13,000 and 11,000  years ago. Spatial variation of Piaján

1  From First Settlement to the Growth of Complex Cultures: 12,500–1500 BCE

47

styles, the emergence of small, organized communities near predictable water sources; burial of the dead, and rapid changes in resource exploitation appear to coincide with the emergence of territoriality, trade, semisedentary lifeways, and the earliest examples of a low-intensity food-producing economy between 9800 and 7400 years ago. Here, a multiple-origins model of the economic basis of Andean complex societies must be considered, with varying contributions from marine resources, foraging, household cultivation, intensive foraging, and early agriculture. Diverse populations of fisherfolk, early semisedentary peoples, mobile hunter-foragers, and highland groups coexisted and constantly exchanged resources with one another (Dillehay 2011a; Dillehay et al. 2011). The ubiquitous gourd (Cucurbita moschata) appears to have been the first crop to arrive during the El Palto phase of the Late Piaján era circa 8200 BCE (Piperno 2011). Between 7700 and 5800 BCE, remains of peanuts, beans, pacay, quinoa, and coca emerge in the archaeological record. By 4200 BCE, cotton and maize had arrived on the scene. Dillehay (2011b: 287) emphasizes that the adoption of agricultural practices was slow and selective as some groups rejected this new food production method. Yet, new “regional” dietary preferences appeared quite rapidly in early Zaña food production given that the people were unable or chose not to grow other South American cultigens likely available to them, such as a variety of root crops, avocados, arrowroot, leren, archira, and yams (Piperno 2011). Dillehay (2011c) further characterizes the adoption of agriculture in the Zaña region as a three-stage process. The first stage involved an exploratory phase (the El Palto/Late Piaján era) with proto-households and crops such as squash. The second phase involved increased sedentism (the Las Pircas era) where crops such as squash, manioc, quinoa, and peanuts were associated with permanent landscape colonization, household gardening, and incipient mound building. The third stage involved agricultural intensification (the Tierra Blanca phase), with an associated rise of multi-household cooperation, mound building, and new and more complex forms of economic organization and social relationships. Two valleys to the south, a broadly similar but nonetheless distinct path unfolded at the Huaca Prieta mound (Dillehay 2017). This site is located on the Sangamon Terrace on the shore of the Chicama valley, just northwest of the river mouth. It features the eponymous Huaca Prieta at the south end of the 2.5-km-long terrace joined by the Paredones sector at its north end along with a Cupisnique mound. Extensive data on macro- and microbotanical and faunal remains characterizes not only the composition but also the social dimensions of food production and subsistence economies at Huaca Prieta over a 14,000-year-long period divided into a five-­ phase site chronology. Beginning with Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene contexts, the number and diversity of plant species unsurprisingly increase steadily over time, and the spectrum shifts from wild-growing cultivars to domesticated crops. A wide range of cultigens appear important from multiple coastal, tropical, and highland zones over time including wild grapes and potatoes later in time. In the earliest phases at Huaca Prieta, the earliest appearance of beans, gourds, and avocados is apparent on the entire north coast. These are joined later in time by guayaba, chili pepper, lúcuma, and jack beans (see the extensive lists of

48

Pre-Hispanic North Coast Cultures and Foodways

recovered macro- and microbotanical specimens in Bonavia et al. 2017). Maize precedes cotton and maize kernels appear to have been heated and consumed as popcorn. Further, maize was but a minor dietary footnote until about 2500 BCE. Other recovered cultigens are known ethnologically or ethnographically for their use in folk medicine today. The even more extensive assemblages of faunal remains at Huaca Prieta span inland and shore birds (doves, pelicans, boobies, albatross, plovers), ducks, penguins, rodents, dogs, foxes, guinea pig, white-tailed deer, llama, freshwater and marine snails, frogs, crabs, bivalves, sharks, rays, and multiple dozens of bony fish genera (for the extensive accounting of these faunal remains, see Vásquez et al. 2017). Analysis by temporal phase illustrates that Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers occasionally visited the Sangamon Terrace (Phase I, ca. 12,500–9400 BCE [calibrated radiocarbon dates]). While today on the seashore, it was then a prominent feature of the mid-valley landscape as the sea was at least 30  km to the west. Shellfish was already a fundamental part of their foodways, as were sea lions, along with sharks, crabs, and only a few bony fish and mollusks. Marine resources were joined with wild plant foods and early domesticates such as squash, chili peppers, and avocados. At the dawn of the Early Holocene (9400–5571 BCE), changes were afoot as marine gastropods and bivalves composed nearly 50% of the food remains. As sea level rose and the beach approached the site, bony fish begin to increase in representation. Phase II (5571–4538 BCE) saw ever-greater numbers of new types of bony fish were exploited and consumed, though the marine diet was still dominated by bivalves and gastropods and mammalian protein sources was still dominated by sea lions (Vásquez et al. 2003). New and foreign cultigens were introduced that added low-intensity farming to the preexisting wetland and maritime foraging/hunting. This underscored even more consequential changes, as mound building was initiated, populations grew, and new forms of economic specialization emerged. Beginning at the termination of this occupational phase, the Paradones component appears to represent a people increasingly committed to a distinct subsistence strategy involving terrestrial and littoral flora and fauna, while the people at the Huaca Prieta mound itself were far more marine resource-focused. This latter point may have much to do with the increased functional shift of the Huaca Prieta mound to a non-domestic ritual and mortuary site with small-scale feasting and offering of symbolically significant bivalves, snails, and gastropods. Through all of this diversification of food production, very different and very new social ontologies and relationships were being forged, complementary and amicable with one another (Dillehay 2017: 569). By 4338–3308 BCE, Phase III was underway with well-developed and progressively further entrenched strategies involving farming (at Paradones) and marine food subsistence bases (at Huaca Prieta). Activities involving the burning (ritual offering?) of plants and sea urchins in particular may have reflected the elevation of these food items into a symbolic resource. As intensification of crop production increased at Paradones, sea lion consumption declined (Vásquez et al. 2003). Also, camelid remains are consistent with low-intensity animal husbandry of some kind.

1  From First Settlement to the Growth of Complex Cultures: 12,500–1500 BCE

49

In the following Phase IV between 3308 and 2107 BCE, foodways continued on their bifurcated trajectories achieving even greater specialization. Marine diets once again focused intensely on gastropods, snails, and bivalves at Huaca Prieta. In the final phase, Phase V, between 2107 and 1455  BCE, faunal remains reveal their increasing ritual roles involving kin group-level mortuary or commensal feasting and their use as grave goods at Huaca Prieta. Mollusk consumption continued as did fairly intense sea lion exploitation. At the end of this sequence, early Guañape-like and Cupisnique ceramics appear as Huaca Prieta and Paradones were vacated. In sum, data from the Huaca Prieta complex portray diverse maritime foraging economies that slowly shifted between subsistence strategies to form a bifurcated small-scale littoral and then “coastal” society. One constituent community was focused on marine foodways (part-time fishers, specialized shellfishers, marine hunters, and foragers) and the other on terrestrial cultivation (as part- or full-time farmers, possible part-time wetland fishers, and littoral/beach hunters) (Vásquez et al. 2003). Yet, they were unified under a single ontology and religious practice (for further discussion, see various chapters in Dillehay 2011a). The unprecedented scale, nature, ritual basis, and ontological constructions of the processes that unfolded at Huaca Prieta appear to be unique (and see Dillehay [2017] for a full discussion) and may not have been repeated elsewhere. All of this was part of a broader series of changes occurring throughout the coastal Andes that set forth multiple structural preconditions and historical contingencies that allowed for the unprecedented changes just over the horizon.

1.1  The Dawn of Social Complexity The transition from foraging to farming and the origins of complex societies are some of the most important but again poorly studied topics in north coast history. Around 3000–2800 BCE, Peru’s “Formative era” opened with an explosive surge of civic-ceremonial centers built along the central and north coast. The trigger behind this evidently sudden development of monumental construction and economic intensification has long been a point of considerable discussion. Michael Moseley’s (1975) controversial “maritime foundations of Andean civilization hypothesis” continues to generate dynamic and critical debate (Feldman 2008; Sandweiss 2008). His original argument proposed that coastal Peru was unlike every other global center of complex culture that was based upon a permutation of sedentary agricultural lifeways. In Peru, Moseley hypothesized that complex, long-term patterns of coastal environmental change and ecogeography drew these Andean peoples toward another pathway to complexity—ocean resources—and that early agriculture was geared to support a maritime economy (e.g., cotton for fishing nets) and not large-­ scale food production. Later, Moseley (1992; 2002) revised this model to include a greater diversity and integration of terrestrial resources. Returning to our best sources of systematic analysis for this region, the Sangamon Terrace, provides insights into this debate. While specialization occurred, marine

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foods were never absent at Paradones and vice versa regarding terrestrial resources at Huaca Prieta. In fact, the legacy of early marine foodways still persists today. In Phase I, foodways were based on both maritime and terrestrial resources. Phase II saw a primary focus on maritime food accompanied by foci exploiting wetland flora and fauna. Development and entrenchment of an opposing, complementary, specialized, and dual marine-terrestrial subsistence economy took shape in Phase III and intensified in Phases IV and V. As Dillehay (2017) notes, these data do not invalidate Moseley’s (1975, 1990) Maritime Origins hypothesis but demonstrate instead that the dependence on a food crop economy was much earlier and more complex than previously envisioned. It is unlikely that single-factor explanations for the adoption of cultigens (ecological stress responses, changing sea levels, demographic changes, resource scheduling, migration) apply in this setting, and Dillehay (2017) emphasizes in provocative fashion that emergent complexity of social systems, ecological features, ontology, cosmology, and religion all structured subsistence economy and foodways. In sum, available evidence today best supports Dillehay et al.’s (2011) “multiple origins economic model” whereby spatially and temporally uneven convergences of coexisting foraging, maritime, and early agricultural economies occurred—all three factors had to come together, and they did so in different ways in different valleys. Ocean resources were certainly a critical pillar, but not necessarily the central or ultimate driving variable. Thus, when modeling the process of the foraging-farming adaptive transition, it appears not to have been an abrupt change but one whose building blocks were slowly being set as these coastal peoples chose to adopt less mobile lifestyles in more circumscribed territories and emergence of delayed-return labor systems. Small-scale agriculture was adopted very early as inferred from the Nanchoc tradition’s canal systems dating to 9000  years ago in the Zaña valley (Dillehay 2011a, b). Then, 2000 years of mixed foraging and low-intensity cultivation promoted changes in landscape and water management, the creation of the first artificial “moisture pockets” beyond the riverine microenvironments, and decisions to adopt particular cultigens. These changes were not universally adopted but locally focused. Eventually the scale and complexity of the activities seem to have imperceptibly passed a certain threshold that generated the first so-called complex societies. In at least some settings, it appears early complexity and social inequality existed probably at least by 7800 years ago judging from the distribution of exotic materials in the Zaña valley (Dillehay 2011a, b). Such inequality was organized into even more unique social relationships and realities. For millennia, evidence of hierarchical leadership or elites is virtually absent from the earliest mound builders to the most ambitious of Preceramic monumental construction projects. These collectives are inconsistent with a vertically organized society but instead functioned in some kind of decentralized lateral or horizontal form of organization (sensu Dillehay 2017). Decision-making and large-scale, long-term labor projects were likely underscored via consensus building and a common belief system—not economic incentives, coercion, or manipulation.

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The focus of the Late Preceramic (or aceramic) developments was mostly in the central coast and far southern north coast region. Good examples of this phenomenon are embodied by sites such as Salinas de Chao, Aspero, Cardal, El Paraíso, Caral and the broader Norte Chico region, and Las Haldas (Burger 1992; Fuchs and Patzschke 2013; Haas and Creamer 2004; Pozorski and Pozorski 1987, 2008; Onuki 2013; Shady 2006, 2009; Shady and Leyva 2003). In the Late Preceramic strata at Puémape at the southwestern-most margin of the Jequetepeque region, Elera (1998) documented a distinct subsistence strategy that sought a relative balance between mollusks gathered from both rocky and sandy-bottom undersea habitats. Donax shells, practically ubiquitous in later eras and places, were relatively rare. Other dietary remains at Puémape are certainly familiar to the north coast Preceramic: varieties of bony fish, crabs, sea urchin, sharks, gulls, boobies, and pelicans. A major focus seemed to have involved consumption of smooth hound sharks (Mustelus sp.). Cormorants were the primary avian food source, while sea lions were the preferred mammalian marine protein sources. Opportunistic scavenging of beached whales is indicated at Puémape, and limited evidence of camelids, dogs, and rodents were noted (Elera 1998 Appendix 105). Domesticated cultigens and industrially produced crops spanned gourds (used as containers), cotton (the most common paleobotanical remain in these strata), and comestibles such as avocado, maize, chili peppers, and pacay. These food sources were all immediately available, and their production is supported by surrounding the Puémape settlement. Despite its distance from the central coast, Lambayeque also participated in these broader regional changes. Evidence of super-communal labor organization, monumental construction, and economic intensification is clear here as well, but they did so in distinct fashion at the site of Ventarrón, described in the chapter “The Lambayeque Biohistory Project: Contexts and Analysis.” Preceramic foodways in the Lambayeque Valley Complex have been best characterized by food remains from this site (Vásquez and Rosales 2012). The variety of mollusks demonstrates at Ventarrón points to an open-beach foraging strategy again exploiting rocky and sandy bottom coastal beach microenvironments along with some riverine exploitation of sweetwater shellfish. Again, Donax sp. is very rare. While sea urchins had a specialized role at Huaca Prieta, Choromytilus chorus, or the Choro mussel, may have held a ritual significance at Ventarrón in addition to its nutritional value (Vasquéz and Rosales 2012: 265). Twenty-two species of fish were documented at Ventarrón, with mullet representing more than a third of the total fish remains, followed in descending frequency by giant benny fish, sardines, catfish, grunts, and all other taxa representing each less than 1.5% of the sample each. A strong marine dietary focus is indicated as 86.5% of the Ventarrón vertebrate remains are fish, with mammals (7%) and birds (6.5%) as the remaining components. A few unique mammals were identified to include possum and small jaguar species. While camelid remains were found, they were rare and not seemingly part of the subsistence economy. The most common vegetal remains at Ventarrón included algarrobo and gourds accompanied by small quantities of avocado, beans, wild cotton, lúcuma, and ají pepper. Compared to other Preceramic sites, the near-total absence of Capiscum sp. peppers and Capparis sp. fruits is notable. Compositionally, only about

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11% of the paleobotanical remains at Ventarrón corresponded to comestible foodstuffs compared to 87% of the record representing plants used for so-­called industrial or artisanal use (e.g., gourds as containers) (Vasquéz and Rosales 2012). Just three kernels of maize were identified at Ventarrón, indicating its presence in the Preceramic world, but it was not at all a major portion of anyone’s diet. And for further discussions of Preceramic era foodways and societies, see also Sandweiss (2008), DeFrance (2009), and Feldman (2008). Later early monumental construction projects occurred elsewhere on the north coast during the late Initial Period (ca. 1200  BCE); Sechín Alto (Casma valley) became one of the largest architectural complexes in the world at the time (Pozorski and Pozorski 1987). Other large and complex sites dating to the Late Preceramic (2200–1800 BCE) are found at Alto Salaverry in the Moche valley and Pampa de Las Llamas-Moxeke and Huaynuná in the Casma valley (Pozorski and Pozorski 1987, 2008). Reflections of a participation in broadly shared ritual/ideological concepts between the highlands and the coast seem reflected in the persistence of ritual ventilated hearths at places such as Huaynuná (Casma valley) (Pozorski and Pozorski 1990) and Ventarrón. Some degree of violence or organized fighting may be reflected in the megalithic stone carvings at Cerro Sechín (lower Casma valley). While other contemporaneous coastal peer polities occasionally depicted disembodied and bleeding human heads in murals or clay sculpture, nothing surpasses the carved reliefs at Cerro Sechín. These carved granite slab panels ringing the outside of the building portrayed victorious combatants interspersed between depictions of mutilated human bodies and body parts such as bleeding, decapitated heads, piles of eyeballs and vertebrae, and graphically eviscerated individuals. In the Moche valley, inhabitants of Alto Salaverry appear to have been opportunistic and creative in their subsistence, focused on major rock-dwelling and sandy inshore water-dwelling species of mollusks that the immediate area provided. These included muscles, a few types of clam, limpets and other snails, crabs, and bony fish such as mullet and sciaenids (Pozorsky 1976). The striking lack of bird and sea lion remains suggests limited to no exploitation of these animals as food sources. Data from the Padre Abán site, also located in the Moche valley, is limited to a small midden sample related to this settlement of fisherfolk. Again, rocky reef and sandy bottom habitat species were identified, and if the sample is reflective of the larger foodways, Padre Abán peoples consumed significant quantities of muscles, while many of the fish were probably caught with nets (Pozorsky 1976).

2  The Cupisnique, Salinar, and Gallinazo Peoples After 1500 BCE, the Cupisnique culture emerged on the north coast with a core region in the Chicama, Jequetepeque, and Lambayeque valleys. Ceramics had been developed in the interim, and the Cupisnique society was among the first to imbue such objects with ideological messages. They also appear as a more complex society (or array of societies) united by a common religious tradition linked to a

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c­ hiefdom-­like form of political organization. The Cupisnique phenomenon spanned the stretch of the north coast encompassing the La Leche, Lambayeque, Jequetepeque, Chicama, and Moche valleys (Elera 1998). The Cupisnique are still best understood from their art, which included representations of plants, animals, humans, stylized felines, and supernatural entities. Gray to black ceramic wares featured elaborate incised geometric designs, patterned burnishing, stamping, appliqué, and punctation rather than painted designs (Shimada et al. 1991). Cupisnique religious art, while comparatively crude in light of later traditions, is captivating in its stylized depictions of humans, felines, and supernaturals. A subset of the iconography featured images of human decapitation related to metaphors of vegetal fertility, cuttings of root plants, and liquid nourishment (Elera 1998; Jones 2010). Cupisnique artisans depicted decapitators that harvested human heads (Cordy-Collins 1992). It remains to be seen if Cupisnique peoples actually conducted ritual killing or simply used the imagery as powerful, charged metaphors. Further, Cupisnique art is often asymmetrical, well illustrated by stirrup-spout vessels that depict a humanlike face on the left side and the feline or spider face on the right side—interpreted as representing the transformative powers of a shaman to facilitate communication between earthly and supernatural realms (Burger 1992; Elera 1993, 1998). The Cupisnique culture has long been confused with or subsumed under the Chavín regional religious phenomena. Recent studies indicate contemporaneous Cupisnique peoples interacted with the widespread Chavín phenomenon, but the Cupisnique tradition was autogenous and locally dominant over Chavín on north coast. In fact, what was long thought as classic “Chavín” iconographic conventions (e.g., agnathic fangs depicted on supernaturals) is likely a Cupisnique style adopted by Chavín artisans and not the other way around (Bischoff 1994, 1997; Elera 1998). Examples of Cupisnique architecture are characterized from only a few studied examples such as the Huaca de los Reyes (Moche valley), Limoncarro and Puémape (Jequetepeque valley), Purulén (Zaña valley), Collud (Reque valley), and Huaca Lucia (La Leche valley). Such structures exhibit various shared features: relatively low-tiered platforms, centrally inset stairways as wide as 16 meters, rectangular forecourts, and most unique of all, elaborate colonnades (Burger 1992; Shimada 1986). Some of the smaller center in the Zaña and Jequetepeque valleys (Dillehay 1998; Ravines 1985) were laid out according to dualistic principles, characterized by opposing U-shaped plazas, small mound structures, and ritual fires. Geoglyphs stylistically linked to the Cupisnique tradition have been documented up-valley from Purulén at Pampa de Caña Cruz (Alva 1985b). In the La Leche valley, a large geoglyph near Mochumi Viejo similarly features a stylized anthropomorphic face blended with feline features (Kosok 1965: 161, Plate 30). Evidence of emerging social inequality and the emergence of social elites in Cupisnique society exist in the form of a settlement hierarchy and differentiated burial treatments (Elera 1998). During Late Cupisnique phase, the emergence of metallurgy promoted the manufacture of precious metal objects. Elaborate gold crowns, ear spools, and pendants appeared for the first time in the Andes, most notably at Kuntur Wasi and Chongoyape (Onuki 2013). Gold objects were almost

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c­ ertainly used as symbols of social and religious authority (Elera 1998: 280) to embody social difference/inequality between the leadership and everyone else. In the Lambayeque Valley Complex, Elera (1986) documented evidence of a Cupisnique necropolis and ceremonial center featuring the remains of an artificial wall-like ramp (820 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, and 5 meters in height) leading from the sea to the base of a mountaintop temple. Another Cupisnique center was destroyed by looting in the 1920s near the upper valley town of Chongoyape (Lothrop 1941). Within the Pomac Forest in the La Leche valley, Huaca Lucia and Huaca Soledad were established around 1300 BCE (Shimada 1981; 1986). Huaca Lucia was a two-tiered platform mound topped by a U-shaped enclosure dominated by a colonnade of 24 red-painted circular columns. Long-degraded polychrome murals adorned the enclosing walls. The platform was joined to a staircase, 16 m wide and 10 m tall (Shimada 1986: 166–170). For unknown reasons, Huaca Lucia was abandoned and the entire structure ritualistically entombed. Sterile sand, likely taken from the sand sheets that cover most of the lower La Leche valley beginning some 3 kilometers to the south, was used to bury Huaca Lucia in a single event that may have lasted a few months and involved a remarkable outlay of labor. A lower and upper clay seal, both perfectly level, sealed the staircase and temple top, respectively. The practice of “temple entombment” in the Lambayeque region strongly suggests influence or religious connections to contemporaneous highland religious traditions (Bonnier 1997). The Cupisnique decline around 700 BCE is poorly understood. Evidence from Cupisnique coastal sites suggests the Cupisnique society was destabilized by environmental perturbations including catastrophic El Niño events and a possible tsunami (Elera 1998). The Cupisnique legacy, however, influenced the rest of north coast prehistory. As the Cupisnique declined, most of the latter half of the first millennium BCE was dominated by the Salinar culture. Salinar differs from earlier Cupisnique style in several respects, such as with their emphasis on reddish, oxidized wares. With a core region in the Chicama-Moche-Virú-Santa valleys, Salinar influence was noted perhaps as far north as the Lambayeque and Piura regions and as far south as the Nepeña valley. Dedicated studies of the Salinar-period Lambayeque region have yet to be undertaken. The Salinar may have involved a coastal expansion of northern highland cultures that at least artistically hybridized with the coastal Cupisnique (Elera 1998; Seki 1997). Some of the first apparent fortifications on the north coast appear to have been constructed during this time (Willey 1953). These structures may be interpreted as evidence of increased social tensions or a degree of organized warfare. Thus, strife existed between the intrusive Salinar and indigenous populations (i.e., Cupisnique descendants) in the lower valleys. Further, it is incorrect to consider Salinar as an intermediate stage of development between Cupisnique and Moche cultures (Shimada 1994a, b). Salinar may instead represent a process of dynamic and perhaps stressful interaction between two peoples who likely competed for access to coastal and valley resources. Then, as the Salinar declined, the Gallinazo (or Virú) culture rose to prominence. Bennett (1939) was the first to formally identify this culture in the Virú valley.

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Diagnostic Gallinazo ceramics and art styles are present on nearly the entire north coast with the possible exception of the Piura valley (Shimada 1994a). The strongest manifestations of Gallinazo culture are noted in the Chicama-Moche-Virú-­ Santa valley stretch of the north coast. Gallinazo peoples maintained a chiefdom-level society with several notable ceremonial-civic centers. This society was quite likely more centralized and complex than the Cupisnique culture. Irregular clusters of villages and so-called “urban” settlement sprung up around monumental platform mounds. Sun-dried adobe bricks were used as the primary building material by the Gallinazo. Gallinazo material styles are characterized by pedestal shaped bowls, stirrup-spout vessels, and simple, unslipped jars decorated with human or zoomorphic facial representations on the neck—the emblematic face-neck jar (Shimada and Maguiña 1994). Recent advances in Gallinazo archaeology have clarified elements of their internal organization and legacy (Millaire and Morlion 2011). A long-held unilinear vision saw the Gallinazo being simply “replaced” by the Moche. Instead, it appears that far more complex processes were in play. A key issue involves the fact that Gallinazo artistic conventions, construction techniques, mortuary patterns, and apparent genetic links to the Moche (Donnan 2009; Shimada 2010) indicate that distinctions must be drawn between their political, biological, and artistic features. That is, some Gallinazo polities likely evolved into Moche polities, while others coexisted alongside the Moche (Bourget 2003). The Gallinazo indeed may also represent the roots of a north coast biological and cultural substratum that continued to exist, in varying forms, under the surface of later north coast societies (Donnan 2009; Klaus 2014; Shimada and Maguiña 1994). In the Lambayeque Valley Complex, an extensive Gallinazo presence has been defined (Shimada and Maguiña 1994). The stone-terraced Gallinazo site of Cerro Sajino on the northern margin of the Pampa de Chaparrí was instrumental in controlling access to the Racarumi canals in the upper La Leche drainage. Associated incised and appliqué decorated Gallinazo ceramics at the adjacent Cerro Huaringa (later a Sicán copper mine) suggest exploitation of copper ores was initiated by the Gallinazo. A primary political and religious center for the La Leche Gallinazo communities was likely Huaca Letrada-Paradones, located on the northeast flank of Cerro Tambo Real. This U-shaped complex was dominated by a primary adobe platform mound measured some 100 meters east-west, and 60 meters north-south, and was originally 20 meters high (Shimada and Maguiña 1994: 43–47). Thick deposits of associated camelid dung and camelid bones indicate that by Gallinazo times, llama pastoralism was a central component to local and regional economy. A Gallinazo presence is patently clear under the surface at Moche V Pampa Grande, and they even appear to outlive the Moche—with what can be termed “Gallinazocoid” material culture appearing in securely dated Middle Sicán contexts in the Pomac region (900–1100 CE) (Shimada and Maguiña 1994). Between 1500 BCE and 100 CE, an unprecedented myriad of cultural, economic, and political developments unfolded along the north coast. Great canal systems were established in large-scale hydraulic engineering projects. Economic structures emerged involving tribute labor, food production, and food redistribution by small groups of

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increasing powerful elite lords. Populations grew, generation after generation. During this time, a trajectory of agricultural intensification was sparked and sustained. Unfortunately, the details of this process in the paleobotanical and zooarchaeological records are as poorly studied as are many aspects of the Cupisnique, Salinar, and Gallinazo cultures themselves. Current evidence does provide a basic sketch of this broader process in several settings. Clearly though, food and foodways took on complex new dimensions, becoming even more vitally situated in the economic and social lives of these societies—and the intensification of maize agriculture may have been a key part of these changes.

3  The Moche Culture: 100–800/850 CE The Moche represented the primary development on the north coast of Peru during the first millennium CE. They are well-known for their exquisite metallurgy, a narrative art style second only to that of ancient Greece, large-scale systems of labor and food production, and a belief system that institutionalized elite political power and ideology, sacrifice, and death (Benson 2012; Bourget 2016; Bourget and Jones 2008; Pillsbury 2001; Quilter and Castillo 2010; Uceda and Mujica 1994, 2003). Sometime around the first century A.D., Moche Phase I–II (or the Early Moche period; 100–300 CE) coalesced. Moche genesis probably occurred in multiple locations along the north coast including Lambayeque owing to sociopolitical changes within the preexisting Gallinazo regional hierarchy. Early Moche elites were likely allied through gift giving and shared religious beliefs and art styles (Shimada 2010; Klaus et al. 2018). The spread or adoption of a Moche identity among non-elites likely represented a different process altogether (Bawden 2001: 290–291) but varyingly united diverse fishers, farmers, camelid herders, and artisans into a shared political economy at the very least. Each north coast valley from La Leche to the Nepeña seems to have had at least one or two major Moche administrational units. In the larger picture, the north coast had developed a geopolitical and cultural bipartition by this time. The Moche north of the Pampa de Piaján (the 60 km desert stretch that separates the Chicama and Jequetepeque regions) shared a range of very diverse artistic, technological, architectural, artistic, and even chronological features that were very distinct from those of the southern Moche (Benson 2012). In other words, both groups shared a baseline culture and religious system (Donnan 2010; Bourget 2014), but they expressed “Moche” differently and independently from each other. The principal loci of northern Moche developments seem to played out across three valleys between Sipán, Úcupe, and Dos Cabezas, while a principal southern polity was firmly centered in the Moche-Chicama region (Castillo and Donnan 1994; Shimada 1994b). While the northern Moche were probably the most prominent in the opening phases of Moche history, the regional balance of power shifted toward the southern Moche-Chicama polity by Moche III–IV (or the Middle Moche era; 300–550 CE) who extended their control southward as far as the Huarmey valley. It was long

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inferred that the southern Moche subsumed the northern Moche by 550 CE. However, new chronometric dates indicate at least the northern Sipán dynasty not only persisted but also reached its greatest scale of wealth and power during and even after the southern Moche apogee (Aimi et al. 2017). The center of the southern Moche world was the site of Moche (or the Huacas de Moche). There, the monumental Huaca del Sol (or the Temple of the Sun) was built from an estimated 140 million-plus handmade adobe bricks. Some 500 meters to the east was the principal religious center, the Huaca de la Luna (or the Temple of the Moon). An urban zone thrived between the two platforms and contained high-status residences, craft workshops, and cemeteries (Chapdelaine 2001). Variations in mortuary treatments and settlement patterns indicate Moche social organization involved at the very least multitiered, hierarchical class system ruled by a small core of political and religious elites (Millaire 2002). The seeds of now fully realized social inequality probably can be traced back to the earliest expression of vertical social differentiation inferred during the Cupisnique era. At the zenith of the Middle Moche or Moche IV period (450–550 CE), the Moche held sway over 350 kilometers of coastline. This may have either represented the region’s first state (i.e., Billman 2002) or a confederation of closely associated but competitive paramount chiefdoms (Shimada 2010). Others argue for a “many Moches” model (Benson 2010, 2012; Quilter and Koons 2012; Klaus et al. 2018), in which multiple decentralized non-state Moche polities in each valley were aligned by a religious system into a common political economy and especially an elite socioreligious configuration. During this period, food production was situated at the center of a regional political economy that in part functioned to extract tribute from farming households in exchange for access to arable land and irrigation water (Billman 2010). Collection of tribute in the form of staple crops would have required fundamental changes in the types and proportions of cultigens, reduction of fallow field intervals, and increased yields. Labor, gender roles, and diets were transformed (Gagnon 2006). Some of the best evidence of the intensification of maize agriculture comes from oral health and stable isotope values from human remains from the Moche valley the site of Cerro Oreja (Gagnon 2006:265–266; Gagnon and Wiesen 2013; Lambert et al. 2012). Regionally, paleobotanical studies of Guañape, Salinar, and Gallinazo phase sites have identified maize but no other similar cariogenic food (e.g., Pozorski and Pozorski 1979, 1987) along with 13C enrichment of bone apatite and declining oral health (tied directly to the chemistry of an increasingly cariogenic diet) from the Salinar and into the Gallinazo periods. This is fully consistent with, and likely attributable to, nothing else but increased maize consumption. Victor Vásquez and Teresa Rosales and their colleagues at the ArqueoBIOS in Trujillo have characterized Moche food remains composition and distribution at the Huacas de Moche, with many individual reports appearing in the Investigaciones en la Huaca de la Luna series (e.g., Vásquez and Rosales, 1998, 2013, 2016a, b, Vásquez et al., 2003). These reveal a very wide range of foods consumed during this time and include many bony fish, camelids, deer, cuy, sea lions, and a more narrow range of cultigens in the diet with a clear focus on maize. Of course, given the place from which these food remains were recovered, much of this may represent a high-status or elite diet.

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An abnormally intense El Niño event contributed to various social and political transformations around 550  CE (Shimada et  al. 1991), and the southern Moche largely imploded. A new configuration of ideology emerged at Galindo in the mid-­ Moche valley as elites distanced themselves from the recently discredited political-­ religious system (Bawden 2005). Further north, a separate reorganization marked the beginning of Moche V (or the Late Moche period; 550–750/850 CE). Urbanism, even in the most complex Andean societies, was unusual. At Pampa Grande, an urban environment was constructed that centralized political, religious, and economic production/redistribution. This was central to the reorganization strategy pursued by this group of northern Moche. Shimada (1994a) argued that Pampa Grande represented a relatively small but state-level system marking another shift of regional dominance—swinging back to the northern north coast. In terms of foodways, Shimada’s (1982, 1994a) work at Pampa Grande identified again a wide range of food resources. The most important cultigen was maize, along with other key staples of beans and squash, some tomatoes, avocado, peanuts, lucuma, and a truly expansive range of chili peppers. Cotton, gourds, and cane were the chief industrial crops. While algarrobo seeds are nutritious for humans, they may have been used at Pampa Grande primarily as llama fodder. Marine resources spanned freshwater catfish and crayfish to shorebirds, sea lions, ocean-going fish, and shellfish (with a heavy emphasis on Donax sp.). Camelids represented the primary source of terrestrial protein (approximately 85% of the faunal remains) followed in frequency by dogs, ducks, and cuy. The subsistence economy at Pampa Grande highlights a number of the key sociopolitical dimensions of foodways by this time on the north coast of Peru. For one, Pampa Grande itself functioned as the center of a state-level, redistributive tribute economy. As nearly all of the cultigens found at the site were locally available and produced. Coastal self-sufficiency is clear. A good portion of the harvests were likely drawn from the farmers of the middle Lambayeque, Reque, and Zaña valleys. The presence of marine foods is considered in light of the ethnohistoric evidence that describe north coast fishers as a distinct, endogamous, and economically specialized ethnic collective(s) with their own language, identity, and religion (e.g., Rostworowski 1975). Thus, marine foods at Pampa Grande likely underscore the long-lived symbiotic relationship between the full-time coastal fishers and inland populations. Maritime foods may have been acquired directly or indirectly as tribute payments to the lords and administrators of Pampa Grande from the coastal fisherfolk communities. Alternatively, another route could have been indirect tribute from subservient communities who acquired marine foods on their own. Late Moche sherds found in Puerto Eten could represent a group of state-affiliated peoples involved in fishing. Alternatively, they could have been locals engaging directly with the lords of Pampa Grande and consuming their material culture. A third possibility holds that such a settlement involved a transplanted Pampa Grande population akin to that of a colony established to directly exploit marine resources. Elsewhere in the Zaña and Jequetepeque valleys, greater degrees of decentralization, intergroup competition, and strife are noted (Dillehay 2011a, b), while a prominent priestess cult emerged at San José de Moro (Castillo 2011). Swenson’s (2006)

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research in the Jequetepeque valley found evidence of feasts where camelids, cuy, peanuts, various fruits, maize, algarrobo, beans, squash, sea lion, and various species of fish, shellfish, and crab. Chicha was also abundantly consumed during these events. In the decentralized and fractured political landscape of the Late Moche era, food was used in feasts (“endemic feasting,” in Swenson’s words) by smaller scale, local groups to affirm differential social identities and compete for power. Duke et al. (2018) were the first to directly identify Moche potato consumption via starch grain analysis at the Late Moche site of Wasi Huachuma in the lower Jequetepeque valley. Since potatoes are generally eaten whole, they leave virtually no traces in the macrobotanical record. This lack of evidence has been used to suggest Moche potato consumption was rare if not nonexistent, but the data recovered from ceramic sherds is suggestive of fairly regular potato consumption at this site. Other macroand microbotanical remains from Wasi Huachuma included maize, squash, lúcuma, zapote, common bean, cotton, coca, and chili peppers (Vásquez and Rosales 2014). Faunal materials included camelid, cuy, eared dove, five taxa of fish, five taxa of mollusks including Donax obesulus, and crabs (Vásquez and Rosales 2014:8–16). The final political disintegration of the northern Moche occurred around 750–800 CE (Shimada 1994a), though a few strongholds persisted until 850 CE or later (Castillo 2003; Uceda 2010). The Transitional Period then unfolded (ca. 750/800–900  CE) appearing as a period of decentralization preceding a cycle of sociopolitical regeneration (sensu Schwartz and Nichols 2006). In some reaches of the southern north coast, this era lingered on beyond 1100 CE as yet new local societies such as the Casma culture emerged (Vogel 2014). A highland Cajamarca and even Wari presence in the form of discrete highland colonies appears to have thrived for a short time in the Lambayeque and Jequetepeque areas (Bernuy and Bernal 2008; Shimada 1994a; Bracacmonte 2018).

4  The Sicán Culture: 900–1375 CE Around 850–900  CE, the Sicán (or the Lambayeque culture) emerged from the Transitional Period. Archaeological data documenting major cultural changes coupled with over 100 secure radiometric dates allow for the partitioning of Sicán culture into three distinct periods: Early Sicán (750/800–900 CE), Middle Sicán (900–1100 CE), and Late Sicán (1100–1375 CE) (Shimada 1990, 2000). By the Middle Sicán, the religious-funerary complex named Sicán located in the heart of the Pomac desert forest (La Leche valley) had become the capital of a multiethnic theocratic state holding influence from the Ecuadorian frontier to the Chicama valley (Shimada 1990, 2000, 2014a, b, c). The Middle Sicán period involved many unprecedented organizational and technological developments including growth of a multiethnic society and a fusional or hybrid religious ideology revolving around an elite ancestor cult, large-scale funerary rites, and feasting activity (Shimada 2014b; Matsumoto 2014). The image of the celestial and “Sicán Deity” dominated all manner of expressive media and especially sumptuary ceramic wares and

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­ etalwork. Middle Sicán lords revived Late Moche monumental construction m techniques producing some of the largest truncated adobe pyramids in the region. Metal was the “aesthetic locus” of the Middle Sicán period, and they advanced metallurgy to enter the so-called Bronze Age (Shimada 2014a). The Middle Sicán heartland of the La Leche-Lambayeque valleys functioned as an economic engine, supporting large-scale irrigation agriculture, camelid pastoralism, marine resource exploitation, and bronze production (Shimada 1982) that underwrote a vast trade network that may have reached as far south as the Tiwanaku frontier. Middle Sicán administrators did not pursue militaristic subjugation of neighboring regions, and there is no evidence of a standing, professional fighting force. They spread influence and exercised power by pursuing alliances with local lords, corporate groups, and lineage heads within and beyond the Lambayeque heartland (Prieto 2010). Funerary pattern variation, settlement pattern hierarchies, artistic representations, and the social meanings ascribed to metals reveal at least a four-tiered vertical social hierarchy. At the top were a relatively small number of elite and ethnically Sicán groups linked by kinship who wielded total power over life and death (Shimada 2000, 2014a). A massive, archaeologically perceptible gulf of wealth and power separated them from the non-elite citizenry. This produced very different lived experiences, patterns of biological stress, physical activity, trauma, diet, and genetic patterns between the lords and commoners (Klaus et al. 2017). Most of the non-elites appear as descendants of the same local population that existed during Moche and Gallinazo times. At some point during the Early and Middle Moche periods, a process of ethnogenesis appears to have occurred in various places throughout the coast as non-elites found it advantageous to participate in Moche ritual and material culture. This transformative process seems to have created an ethnic Muchik identity (Klaus 2014) expressed as a cultural substratum just under the surface of the dominant society—resilient, persistent, and interacting with changes in material culture, political organization, or state identity. Muchik-linked practices can be traced systematically through time. Many signals of Muchik identity were expressed intensely in the formal dimensions of funerary rites, ritual interaction with the dead, ritual killing, and other expressive media (e.g., specific iconographic conventions). In many cases, these markers seem to be consciously expressing this identity to serve non-elite social and political agendas (Klaus 2003; Klaus et al. 2010). In other words, they knew they were Muchik, and they used it in the creation, maintenance, and negotiation of group solidarity and goals especially in times when they were a subordinate or subaltern social group. Further, this Muchik phenomenon seems most tenacious and clearly conveyed in Lambayeque Valley Complex. As a cultural substratum, ethnic Muchik peoples represented a unique persistence of a local identity, cultural memory, and practical consciousness that outlived all later macropolitical systems including the Sicán and the Inka. Under the Middle Sicán theocratic state, local production of cultigens occurred throughout the valley, including locations such as the expansive mid-valley Pampa de Chaparrí that was probably something of a strategic breadbasket that featured

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stable, locally managed irrigation systems watering rich farmlands (Hayashida 2006). At the low-status ethnically Muchik multi-craft workshop community of Huaca Sialupe in the lower valley, remains of some 75 diverse taxa of cultigens were found. These predictably included maize, beans, guava, vichayo, zapote, ají peppers, quinoa, and coca along with non-comestibles such as cotton, cane, squash, and gourds (Goldstein 2007). The canal systems around Huaca Sialupe suggest that the people living at this five-mound site may have been producing much of their own food. Other material correlates of chicha brewing were noted as well (Goldstein 2007). Animal remains were not particularly diverse at Huaca Sialupe, limited to primarily camelids, guinea pigs, domestic canids, and extensive Donax sp. remains. The latter demonstrates persistent exploitation of the relatively nearby (ca. 15 km) sandy intertidal zones. Still, camelid meat was the main source of protein at the site between 1020 and 1050/1100 CE. At Huaca Sialupe, camelid bones were mostly those from the distal ends of the long bones and feet, and dog (Canis sp.) was consumed on the site. Most of these bones exhibited gnaw marks and were broken open for marrow extraction. M. Shimada interpreted this assemblage to indicate that meat protein sources were not of the highest quality at Huaca Sialupe (Shimada and Montenegro 2002). This commoner community may have been rather resource-strapped, and they may have resorted to eating everything and anything they could acquire. This contrasts with the food remains found at the Sicán capital precinct. In a highly detailed study of the material signatures of ancestor worship at the center of the Middle Sicán theocratic state, Matsumoto (2014) identified evidence for ceremonial feasts, including funerary rites. Abundant maize remains (from kernels to starch grains) likely related to significant chicha production and consumption. Other macrobotanical remains included algarrobo and molle, which can be ingredients in chicha beer—especially the sweet, sugary algarrobo syrup. Some 98% of all the marine faunal remains found in Matsumoto’s samples were either Donax obesulus or Olivella columellaris. While these were both important food sources for millennia, their sheer numbers and distribution are particularly unusual, again underscoring their use in ceremonial life. Similarly, large proportions of butchered camelid remains were identified, revealing that feast participants certainly consumed llama meat, and in some cases, the meat-poor portions of the animal were “shared” with the deceased in the form of a burial offering. Less common were cuy, dogs, birds, and a possible bat. Of note, the small proportions of deer require special attention. Given the earlier symbolic significance that the Moche afforded deer (Donnan 1997) and the lack of deer remains at non-elite sites such as Huaca Sialupe, it can be inferred that deer was an exclusive meat source that only elites and other special guests or feast participants could enjoy (Matsumoto 2014). Between 1050 and 1100  CE, another powerful El Niño struck followed by a 30-year drought. This was associated with political, economic, and religious instability (Jennings 2008). Then, a mass human sacrifice of nearly 200 people immediately preceded the systematic torching of the temples atop the huacas at Sicán in a concerted effort to remove the leadership (Klaus and Shimada 2016; Shimada 2000). During the Late Sicán (or Late Lambayeque) period (1100–1375 CE), there

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is little to suggest daily life changed outside of religion and politics. A new capital was established 12 km to the southeast of Sicán at Túcume, and their influence continued into the northern Piura region but extended no further south than the Jequetepeque valley.

5  T  he Rise of the Chimú Empire and Conquest of the Inka: 900–1532 CE By the twelfth century, the regional balance of power was oscillating back once again to favor the southern north coast as the Chimú kingdom that began to expand out of the Moche valley. The El Niño-related disruptions that destroyed intra-valley irrigation networks ca. 1050/1100 CE may have been an “initial spark” of Chimú expansion. Kolata (1990:135) envisions this shifted Chimú economy from a primarily local focus to a “parasitic extraction of foreign resources.” After consolidating their core territory, an initial wave imperial expansion reached the Jequetepeque region around 1200  CE (Mackey 2006). A second wave subsumed Lambayeque circa 1375 CE and kept going northward and southward to set the final boundaries of the empire from Ecuador to the north to the outskirts of modern Lima in the south (Mackey and Klymyshyn 1990). The Chimú capital of Chan Chan was the largest pre-Hispanic Andean city, covering nearly 25 square kilometers. Immense quantities of material wealth and human capital went into its construction, which consisted of nine hierarchically monumental royal compounds (or ciudadelas) with most of them likely built in pairs (Cavallaro 1997). In addition, there were 35 smaller elite compounds and a multitude of peripheral neighborhoods (Day 1982). Toward the southern end of each ciudadela were massive burial platforms believed to function as a mausoleum for a dead king’s ancestor cult (Conrad 1982). The internal organization of the ciudadelas served practical administrative functions but also represented unquestionable power and immutable order (Shimada 2000: 97). The Chimú state appears largely secular, though Chimú artisans depicted a “celestial deity” that may have resynthesized earlier Moche, Middle Sicán, and Wari concepts. Water and the ocean were very common themes in Chimú iconography and murals (Jackson 2004; Pillsbury 1996). State-sanctioned mass human sacrifice seems to have occurred during at least one abnormal rain event (Prieto et al. 2014). Ceramics were typically monochrome dark gray wares mass-produced from simple two-piece molds. Compared to Moche or Sicán wares, they lacked careful craftsmanship. When the Chimú came to Lambayeque, they encountered the Late Sicán heartland that may have been seen as the greatest prize of their imperial project. Lambayeque was a bonanza to the Chimú treasury. Chimú administrators pushed the extent of cultivable land in Lambayeque to its pre-Hispanic maximum, perhaps some 30 percent greater than the extent of modern farmland (Shimada 2000: 103).

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The Sicán trade network was taken over by the Chimú. Other evidence strongly indicates Sicán master craftsmen and metalsmiths were taken to Chan Chan as Sicán metalworking technologies were incorporated seemingly overnight into Chimú craft production. Installation of Chimú governors in the Lambayeque region articulated with the empire’s concern to maintain highly productive agricultural hinterlands to support the growing population at Chan Chan. To these ends, Chimú administrators were clever. They did not interfere with long-standing social institutions and knowledge (Shimada 2000:103). Administration of the Lambayeque Valley Complex followed the imposition of a standardized, three-tiered administrative hierarchy involving mostly indirect forms of rule, ranging from state-imposed resettlement or co-option of local paramount lords to the retention of local leaders (Shimada 2000: 104). Túcume was co-opted as the Chimú provincial administration center, and the Chotuna-Chornancap complex served as its primary secondary satellite in the lower valley (Heyerdahl et al. 1995; Wester 2010). Immense amounts of labor and material were invested into both sites. At Túcume, Huaca Larga grew to over 700 meters in length, 280 meters wide, and 20 meters high (Heyerdahl et  al. 1995: 79–80, 192–193). Local elites may have ruled from Huaca Larga, presumably sponsored by and beholden to the Chimú lords of the Moche valley. Other Chimú installations were constructed at administrative and population centers such as Saltur, Cinto, Jotoro, Úcupe, the industrial center of Cerro Huaringa, and La Puntilla which overlooked the strategic Taymi canal intake. Hybrid Late Sicán-Chimú ceramic styles were widely produced and distributed. The domestic sector of the Late Sicán/Chimú era Huaca Las Balsas at the Túcume Archaeological Complex contains food remains that are far more diverse and representative day-to-day foodways (Rosales 2011). Thirteen types of gastropods and three genera of bivalves were reported. Most common was the ubiquitous Donax obesulus (93.5% of the mollusk sample) and Olivella columellaris. Anchovies and herrings were among the six types of bony fish. Terrestrial protein sources appear quite focused on camelids (84.9% of the vertebral faunal sample) followed by guinea pig. Duck and domestic dogs were also noted, but they were of very low frequencies along with all the bony fish. Outside of the contribution coming from Donax consumption, this kitchen(s) was focused almost exclusively on terrestrial protein sources. Maize once again appears as the key staple cultigen (84.9% of the macrobotanical sample) along with four other cultigens (guanábana, pacay, loche, and gourds). Zapote and algarrobo were also identified in small proportions (Rosales 2011). Elsewhere, domestic culinary practices were altered by Chimú expansion at the site of Pedregal, located between Pacatnamú and Farfán in the lower Jequetepeque valley (Cutright 2011, 2014). Socioeconomic changes associated with empire indeed altered local foodways in multiple households at the site. Indeed, one major motivation of Chimú territorial expansion involved the intensification of agricultural production, and the data from Pedregal show a significant increase in maize processing (perhaps as tribute and not necessarily as directly consumed food) and cotton production (Fig. 1). The foci on terrestrial protein at Pedregal are not at all dissimilar to the data from Huaca Las Balsas with a reliance on domesticated

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Fig. 1  Drawing 394. September: Cycle of Sowing Maize. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980[1615]:1166)

mammals (camelids and cuy) as again consumption of fish appears to decrease over time. In some of this pattern, such as the shift from sardines to anchovies, Cutright (2011) reasons may be attributed to periodic climatic variability. Donax sp. consumption intensifies over time at the site, again probably due to climatic variability and not imperial edict. Other foods found at Pedregal span avocado, guanabana, beans, chiles, algarrobo, coca, camelids, cuy, domestic dog, land snails, crabs, seaweed, and the large bony suco fish (Cutright 2014, Tables 1 and 2). In this commoner community, deer were virtually absent.

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Around 1400 CE, the Inka Empire began to expand out of the Cuzco basin (see chapters in Shimada [2015] for a multidisciplinary synthesis of the Inka phenomenon). The Chimú refused Inka diplomatic overtures to be integrated as subservient members of the empire of Tawantinsuyu. According to Cabello Balboa (1586 [1951]), Inka armies brutally routed the Chimú around 1460 or 1470 CE. At least in Lambayeque, one of the most significant impacts of Inka conquest involved land tenure and control over the highly developed coastal trade system. The Inka also attempted to convert ceremonial events into opportunities for barter and trade that would become Inka tribute (Ramírez 1990: 519–525, 532) as well as settings to emphasize both the generosity and authority of the empire (Hayashida and Guzman 2015). As the Chimú before them, the Inka were focused on managing the uppermost levels of political and economic structures, not daily comportment or beliefs. They also encountered a highly organized north coast society whose deeply entrenched customs could not be changed overnight (Ramírez 1990: 532). Unsurprisingly, many aspects of local Lambayeque culture, from social/ethnic group identities, burial patterns, craft production technologies, and religious sacrifice were not appreciably altered in most places (Klaus et  al. 2016; also see Hayashida 2006). Indeed, the Chimú/Inka occupation at Sector V at Túcume provides a window upon late pre-Hispanic subsistence economy in the Lambayeque region (Sandweiss 1995). This sector, located to the southwest of the monumental core of Túcume, was a domestic and craft production zone. Data from recovered food refuse and midden contexts again shows that camelids and Donax sp. served as the primary sources of dietary protein. Cuy, domestic dogs, and deer were comparatively quite rare. In the higher-status West Mound, coca and the only deer elements were found, echoing Matsumoto’s (2014) interpretations from the earlier Sicán state. Age distributions among the camelids are consistent with the maintenance of large, local herds. Maize remains were abundant, along with guanabana, algarrobo, and avocados. Less common at Túcume were cherimoya, pacay, guayabas, and peanuts (Sandweiss 1992).

6  Conclusions The pre-Hispanic cultures of the north coast of Peru and their foodways were the products of some 14,500 years of social, ecological, and historical dynamism producing both autogenous cultural developments and interactions with external influences. This chapter has provided a basic outline of the key pre-Hispanic developments of the Lambayeque Valley Complex that embodied multiple intertwined historical contingencies that shaped the configurations of societies and the ways in which foodways emerged and evolved over the millennia. In particular, pre-Hispanic adaptive transitions appear to have been unhurried and intricate such as the transition from foraging to farming. The development of social inequality and sociopolitical complexity also appears to have been slow, but it was arguably an incrementally progressive process beginning around 2800 BCE

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occurring as cycles of developing complexity, climax, collapse, decentralization, and regeneration. However, a profound rupture to the internal continuity of Andean societies was initiated with the arrival of the Spanish and the postcontact adaptive transition—which was by far the most rapid, destabilizing, and violent chapter of Andean history. The Colonial world is the second half of the contextual foundation of this work, and in the next chapter, we turn to an overview of postcontact Peru and the placement of Lambayeque in this radically transformed world.

Spanish Colonization and Subsistence of the Colonized

They [the encomenderos] insist on being carried like Inka rulers, or saints in procession. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980[1615]:568)

Fourteen thousand years of Andean cultural trajectories were irrevocably disrupted and rerouted by the Spanish invasion of what became Peru. Not only did contact in the Andes represent a chapter within a watershed event in world history (e.g., Wolf 1982), it was part of a broader multi-taxa demographic transformation (Crosby 1994) that continues to unfold today. While human societies have long engaged in Colonial encounters with one another around the world, contact between the Eastern and the Western Hemispheres beginning in 1492 CE brought together in some fashion most human populations and which had been previously been unconnected. This process was coupled with far-reaching sociopolitical effects related to emergence of the first integrated global economic system. Anthropological and scientific understandings of the complexity, depth, and wholly transformative nature of contact are still just beginning to be accrue. Of the seven defined human adaptive transitions over the last seven and a half million years, contact and its aftermath appear unequaled in its scale, degree of violence, and speed. In less than 400 years, the biological and cultural structure of virtually every human population had been somehow transformed. For much of the twentieth century, many scholars envisioned a contact in “uniformitarian” manner, where epidemic diseases wiped out most Native Americans and the survivors were inevitably acculturated into the Western world. Over the last few decades, bioarchaeological research in particular has largely falsified the uniformitarian hypothesis (see chapters in Larsen and Milner [1994], Baker and Kealhofer [1996], and Murphy and Klaus [2017a, b]). The timing, mode, and tempo of these changes were remarkably diverse including in South America. In this chapter, we provide the second half of the contextual basis of this work: the social and ethnohistoric contexts of Spanish conquest of Peru and the Lambayeque Valley Complex.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B. L. Turner, H. D. Klaus, Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42614-9_5

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1  The Conquest of the Andes 1.1  Approaching Postcontact Peru In some ways, the conquest of Peru was fairly well documented from a European perspective. Yet, anthropological attention is most intensely drawn not to the narratives of the colonizers but to the multi-century process initiated in the aftermath of contact. The study of postcontact Peru is challenging on a number of levels. For one, traditional scholarly approaches positioned archaeology in an almost territorial fashion as the “proper” means to study nonliterate pre-Hispanic societies. The postcontact Andean world was the domain of historians and ethnohistorians who mostly consulted written records and not the archaeological record. Accordingly, most knowledge is based on European chronicles, their transcriptions of indigenous oral histories, treasury accounts, government and church correspondence, trade records, judicial documents, wills, and testimonies that are today scattered throughout Spain and Latin America (Pillsbury 2008). These surviving sources provide inestimable windows on Andean politics, social organization, and religion, but they also are deeply biased and incomplete in a number of ways, not the least of which is a geographic focus on the South-Central Andes. Even civil records and documents belie their apparent empiricism and instead represent the changing perceptions and priorities of metropolitan, Colonial, and local administrators. Andrien (2001:5) said it well: such sources must be seen critically through a “double filter” cognizant of limited understandings, agendas, and biases of European observers and later Andean authors. Ramírez (1996:152) further states ethnohistoric sources are distorted artifacts, affected by “layer after layer of European ethnocentric veneer, bias, misdepiction, and misunderstanding of indigenous ideas and concepts” that requires an extensive effort on the investigator’s behalf to access original indigenous ideas, perceptions, and agendas. Fortunately, a small but growing field of Andean historic archaeology has been emerging over the last decade (see chapters in Traslaviña et al., 2017a, b). These efforts that provide new and empirical perspectives on postcontact Peru are independent checks on ethnohistoric data but also reveal cultural realities and processes wholly invisible to the chroniclers. Knowledge regarding diet following the conquest is largely drawn from indirect and incomplete ethnohistoric sources, and the emergent archaeology of the postcontact north coast of Peru and Colonial Peru has only just begun to add direct evidence to this corpus of knowledge. However, it is still clear that many of the relationships involving subsistence economy forged over 14,500  years of pre-­ Hispanic history endured ruptures and reorganizations over the course of only a few hundred years.

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1.2  From First Contact to Chaos The Spanish invasion of Tiwantinsuyu represented the climax of European expansion into the New World. First contact was not made by Pizzaro but by European pathogens. An epidemic of what was probably smallpox swept the Andes in the 1520s, likely introduced from Panama, and it spread rapidly along trade routes (Cook 1992). Hundreds of thousands if not millions perished. One of the victims was the Inka emperor, and in the resulting power struggle of royal succession between his two sons, Huascar and Atahualpa, the Inka empire was plunged into a devastating civil war. In December 1530, Francisco Pizarro and 168 soldiers landed on the coast of western South America. Less than 2  years later, Atahualpa had emerged victorious in the Inka civil war, and he and his army were conducting a kind of “victory tour” of the Inka realm. When in the northern highland town of Cajamarca, the Spaniards and the Inka finally came face-to-face. The ensuing slaughter on 16 November 1532 was one of the most significant turning points in Andean history. Following their abduction, betrayal, and execution of Atahualpa, Spaniards marched to take the Inka capital, and on 15 November 1533, Cuzco fell. The Spaniards began to consolidate their power. Spanish abuse and violence led the puppet emperor, Manco Inka, to unite previous factions and revolt. Cuzco and the newly founded port of Lima, the “City of Kings,” came under siege. Though winning several battles, Manco Inka was unable to dislodge the Spanish. He retreated to Vilcabamba where an independent Inka polity was maintained until 1572. The early Spanish dominion was highly disorganized and volatile, largely owing to greed, competition, intrigue, and other internal divisions that quickly manifested among individual conquistadores (Andrien 1991). Around the same time, the chief economic activity quickly shifted away from a “wartime” melting down of indigenous Andean wealth to a longer-term program of natural resource extraction following discoveries of silver in Potosí and mercury in Huancavelica. The Early Colonial Peruvian economy featured the encomienda system, which allowed the conquerors to collect taxes and labor services from local peoples in return for military protection and instruction in Catholicism (Fig. 1). In the 1550s, royalist Pedro de la Gasca ended the era of chaotic conflict between the colonizers. Still, the Spaniards could not maintain order over this new realm. The encomienda system began to break down. Indigenous slave labor proved unreliable as it became “clear that no one in Peru could maintain his Indians” (Zárate 1968). Continuing affliction by European diseases among Andeans further destabilized the tenuous labor pool (Andrien 2001:45–48). Though an embryonic state began to emerge by the 1560s with the first audencia of Lima, political crisis only deepened. Native hardships intensified. Coherent resistance movements in the south Highlands emerged. The entire Spanish Colonial enterprise in Peru was in danger of catastrophic failure.

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Fig. 1  Drawing 224. The Encomendero Making his Ceremonial Entrance into the Communities Under His Charge. Guaman Poma de Ayala (1980[1615]:568)

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1.3  T  oledan Reforms and the Emergence of Bad Government, 1569–1765 In 1569, King Phillip II dispatched Don Francisco Toledo to Peru to end the crisis. Toledo was faced with key problems involving control of indigenous labor, taxation, and centralized governmental power. Following a 5-year visita general, Toledo ordered indigenous communities resettled into large, Spanish-styled towns, or reducciones. Some 1.5 million Andeans were resettled in this massively disruptive program. Many such communities were headed by a local Andean lord, or kuraka, but local political concepts, balances, and interactions were transformed to serve the Crown (O’Phelan Godoy 1988:14). Under this notorious system, Spanish officials forced indigenous peoples to buy clothes, food, mules, and other items provided on credit from merchants centered in Lima (Burkholder and Johnson 2012). Spanish magistrates acted as the political and economic agents of the state and wrestled control of the countryside from encomenderos (Andrien 1991). Following extensive migration and depopulation, a new census aimed to recalibrate tax assessments as Toledo set concrete procedures for the collection and disbursement of tribute (Andrien 2001:51). Toledo addressed the labor problem at the strategic Potosí by instituting a massive system of compulsory labor, and though called mita, the system was unlike Inka m’ita as it held no provisions involving socioeconomic reciprocity. Then, the exiled Inka regime in Vilcabamba was terminated. Emperor Tupac Amaru was captured. In September 1572, he was beheaded in a gruesome public spectacle in Cusco. Toledo’s reforms were doomed from the start (Andrien 1991, 2001). The entire effort revolved around retaining already unstable systems of production, labor, and wealth. Reforms began to fail by the early seventeenth century as corruption, “bad government,” and indigenous resistance again grew. Economically, reducciones were often inefficient, removed peoples far from their labor sites, undermined the indigenous social fabric and economy, and promoted disease stemming from population aggregation. By the mid-eighteenth century, state revenues were at a historic low as corruption and rebellion (notably those of Tomás Katari, Tupac Amaru II, and Tupac Katari from 1780 to 1783), characterized the Viceroyalty of Peru (O’Phelan Godoy 1988). Antonio de Areche, Special Investigator of the Viceroy, stated in 1777: “Peru is being ruined by a lack of honest officials, forced Indian labor, and the forced trade (repartimiento de comercio) conducted by district judges. The corregidores are concerned solely with their own interests…[H]ow close we are to loosing everything here, unless these disgusting abuses are corrected…Here everything is private interest, nothing public good” (Andrien 2001:67). The Bourbon Reforms which included the intendancy system followed from 1765 to 1825 aimed to once again rejuvenate royal authority, but ultimately served to create an even greater groundswell of oppression and resistance. These reforms too failed, and Peru then was set firmly on the path to independence between 1808 and 1825.

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2  Colonial Administration in the Central Andes 2.1  Demography, Social Organization, and Settlement Demographic change had significant consequences for the sociopolitical and economic landscape of the postcontact Peru. Despite the lack of rigorous or systematic sources, a reconstruction of the epidemic disease in the Andes is tenable. In past attempts to gauge the nature of the demographic shift, early estimates of indigenous population size and depopulation ratios (Dobyns 1963, 1966) were fraught with potential sources of error (Cook 1981:41–54). Cook (1981:114) ultimately suggests Peru’s 1520 indigenous population between 5.5 and 9.4 million. Introduction of European epidemic diseases around 1520 was disastrous. By the 1620s, the native population had been reduced an estimated 93 percent to its historic nadir of 610,000 individuals. Accurate identification of diseases is problematic when drawn from Colonial descriptions, though smallpox and measles appear by far the most destructive and were accompanied by waves of influenza, bubonic plague, typhus, yellow fever, tuberculosis, and other acute infections (Cook 1992). However, depopulation was neither synchronous nor regionally even. In the two decades preceding the 1585–1591 epidemic series, Peru was relatively free of disease outbreaks (Cook 1992). Andean populations began to stabilize in the eighteenth century and slowly rebound. Regions such as the Lambayeque Valley Complex and Aymaya near Potosí likely avoided freefall catastrophic depopulation due to a variety of factors. Depopulation was not always an artifact of disease, as flight and forced migrations contributed as well. The counterpoint to indigenous depopulation involved European populations that generally expanded in Colonial Peru and the net greatest growth was seen among mestizo populations. Colonial Peru featured a rigid, hierarchical social structure intimately linked to the economy. In essence, it possessed elements inherited from European feudal society and an emergent, proto-capitalist economy based on maximizing profit (Crow 1992:255). A small, relatively heterogeneous urban elite class fueled by tribute income was composed of bureaucrats, powerful clergy, and businessmen. Wealth, influence, family, and other social connections determined membership (Burkholder and Johnson 2012). In racial terms, Spanish or American-born white españoles were at the apex of the hierarchy. Merchants in Lima also held immense sway as they actively integrated themselves into the economic activities of the elite and their monopolies secured their power. Rural European elites sprung forth from the early days of the encomiendas to the maturation of the hacienda system, with their power derived from agricultural and ranching profits. Despite the unequaled quantities of natural and human resources under their control, massive demand, and price gouging, rural hacendados were always subordinate to the urban and merchant elite (Burkholder and Johnson 2012). Middle tiers of Colonial Peruvian society were sparsely occupied but began to fill with casta or mestizo children of Spanish-Andean-African unions. Discriminatory

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laws treated mestizos harshly. The adoption of Spanish language, religion, and ­customs by this group eventually advanced their assimilation by the eighteenth century as they functioned as artisans, retail merchants, skilled laborers, and mid-level bureaucrats. The majority of postcontact Peruvian society was composed of an indigenous poor—skilled journeyman, market people, peddlers, farmers, servants, unskilled, and other low-wage laborers, soldiers, beggars, thieves, sex workers and invalids (Burkholder and Johnson 2012). Much of the indigenous population movement flowed from the countryside to urban areas and ultimately was linked to the creation of poor working classes. Despite these and other alterations to the fabric of indigenous life and society, native populations were able to retain elements of pre-­Hispanic culture, but the economic demands of the Colonial reality led to impoverished and powerless indigenous villages that still exist today. The poor in Colonial Latin America and Peru in particular highlight massive inequality and overwhelming disjunctions involving the distribution of wealth. In urban areas, few people worked year-round but instead experienced extensive periods of unemployment. As their services were a commodity that was bought and sold, vulnerability of the poor to fluctuating market demand for labor often led to destitution in a hand-to-mouth existence (Burkholder and Johnson 2012). When employed either in mining, agriculture, ranching domestic service, oppressive quotas extended long hours, and the struggle to survive consumed the energies of the people. Enslaved Africans were also taken to Peru due to the demand for labor and plummeting indigenous labor pools (Bowser 1974). Colonial Peru was a highly racialized in terms of skin color and “blood” (Descola 1968:25). Spanish racism and labor demands contributed to a Colonial outcome shared by enslaved Africans and their descendants in Peru as elsewhere in the Americas, but eventual access to urban economies began to grow a less marginalized, free black community. Colonial Peru was also a male-dominated society, and women of higher castes were notionally barred from labor. Conversely, poor and indigenous women contributed intensely to production in the household or in textile mills. As tribute demands increased, native women bore the brunt of taxation (Silverblatt 1987:129). In Guaman Poma’s 1980 [1615] opinion, the clergy were the most active force in the dehumanization of and violence against women (Silverblatt 1987:139–142). Legally, indigenous women were defined as minors. In this kind of setting, “new kinds of people” also came into being (Hill 1988, 2013). Ethnogenesis was a basic and vital feature of Colonial Peru involving what can be understood as dialectical interchanges between indigenous cultures and intrusive European concepts (Abercrombie 1991; Osario 1999). The most obvious example would be mestizo peoples with both new and unique biocultural heritages and identities. However, the Spanish also invented “new kinds of people,” foremost of which was el indio. This homogenizing identity was a broader part of the Colonial socioeconomic program intimately linked to the indigenous poor throughout Latin America (Stern 1982). The construction of el indio also had many goals including deconstruction of pre-Hispanic identities and ethnic boundaries and served to

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sharply limit potential native political and economic power. In other cases, it seems that some native Andeans actively used and manipulated el indio status to their own ends (see below). Women in Colonial Peru tend to be overlooked in many studies, but Osario (1999) makes a convincing and important argument for native women as a key locus of active agency and ethnogenesis. Settlement patterns involved European models that were both alien and overlapped with pre-Hispanic patterns. Urbanism was known to both worlds, but city grid layout, a central plaza, and sheer size of urban centers were quite European in character. The monumental core of Lima functioned as the center of religious and political life asserting the power of the elite. Distance from the core was proportional with social rank, and neighborhoods were racially segregated. Cities such as Trujillo, Ayacucho, or Lambayeque reproduced this pattern. It largely still exists today. Most settlements in Colonial Peru could be however classified as rural and tied to large estates, haciendas, and estancias with the owner’s house dominating the residential core. Many towns were born as a reducción that condensed many dozens or even hundreds of indigenous settlements into a handful of nucleated settings (MacCormack 1991; Saignes 1999).

2.2  Colonial Economic Order In a global and historical view (sensu Wolf 1982), European expansion into the New World involved fundamental economic motivations. The initial short-term, “get rich quick” goals of the conquistadores were also accompanied by longer-term plans and expansion of market economies. Initially, encomiendas attempted to merge with a European mercantile mode of production. Profits from early encomendias were used to acquire land for crops and livestock production, found mines and textile mills, and connect Andean laborers to expanding regional markets throughout Latin America and Europe (Andrien 2001:77). Yet, encomiendas were inherently unsustainable (Davies 1984). As they declined, encomenderos levied increasingly heavy taxes and labor extraction as social tensions worsened. Indigenous peoples were not organized for intense and long-term production of goods demanded by a rapidly increasing European populace and external market. By 1600, indigenous peoples especially in coastal regions resisted market participation as entire kin groups fled from production and tribute demands (Ramírez 1996). In the wake of the encomienda, the hacienda system took root (Keith 1976), flourishing for a time and then falling into decline by the end of the eighteenth century. Despite the early legal and religious prohibitions against mistreatment of Native Americans spurred on by Bartolomé de las Casas (1995 [1552]), enslavement, brutality, exploitation, and injustice were embedded de facto features of the Colonial Peruvian political economy. Stern (1982:138–139) argues the “insidious” secret of exploitation in the Andes involved not just force but the subtle coercion of dependence in Andean Colonial economies.

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Asymmetrical power relationships, the legal system, and religion were used by Colonial elites to coerce tribute and labor from an economically dependent indigenous peasantry—illustrated by Stern’s (1982) study of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Huamanga. Toledan reforms and associated policies created structural relationships where the exploited “needed” their exploiters to subsist and survive. For instance, rural landed estates that did not receive mita laborers had to attract and retain local workers using a variety of means. Promises of low wages for seasonal laborers were enough for local workers to earn cash and pay out of the iniquitous tribute labor system. In the 1620s, the central coast estate owners needed full-time laborers, and so they offered a cash advance, a small plot of land, and shelter from mita service as incentives for full-time laborers. Then, excessive tribute was exacted from their low pay, and by design many indigenous peoples fell into debt and became legally bound to their employers (Andrien 2001:87). Installation of a market economy was underway by the 1620s. Indigenous Andeans began to play a more direct role as laborers and consumers. The decline in silver and transatlantic trade stimulated a reorientation of the Peruvian economy toward regionalism, diversification, and self-sufficiency (Andrien 2001:84–95). Many Andean peoples also creatively responded to the shifting economy by adapting kinship and social institutions, such as the Lupaka who found ways to profit from the trajine caravans linking highland mining towns with the Peruvian trunk line (Andrien 2001:85–87). Other Andeans had come to own small shops, own city property, or functioned as petty merchants on urban margins (Andrien 2001:88). By the 1730s, new waves of disease, natural disasters, political instability, and declines in mining revenues had undermined the Colonial economy, but mining and transatlantic trade rebounded as the Bourbon Reforms unfolded after 1765. The integration of Andean subsistence and production economies helped lend the late Colonial economy greater flexibility, but Andeans never prospered from the interchange. Instead, they continued to be constructed into an exploited peasantry, increasingly marginal to the sociopolitical life of the newborn Peruvian state of the nineteenth century (Andrien 2001:9).

2.3  Religion, Resistance, and Syncretism While not a direct focus of the current work, the religious fabric of Colonial Peru represented another key dimension of the postcontact world. The Roman Catholic Church joined the Spanish Crown bureaucratically and financially to form the central expression of institutional force in Colonial Latin America. The Church permeated every dimension of Colonial life, functioning as the primary cultural vehicle for native acculturation as they attempted to draw indigenous peoples into the cultural orbit of the Europeans (Burkholder and Johnson 2012). Religious interaction in the Andes resulted in a multilayered confrontation between two total systems in which the two were forever altered in the process.

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The Colonial Church throughout Latin America was intimately involved in imposing Western beliefs, social practices, organization, and political ideals as they “educated” local peoples. Explicit religious teaching was accompanied by a wider agenda: enforcing European standards of dress, hygiene, marriage patterns, inheritance, and legal rights, attending to the sick, and organizing residence patterns (e.g., Farriss 1984). Early missions attempted to portray themselves as a symbolic sanctuary from secular labor and strain to draw in and maintain converts (Crow 1992:207), yet many Andean peoples quickly understood the links between evangelization and exploitation (Saignes 1999:115). The so-called spiritual conquest of the Andes began at Cajamarca in 1532, and soon after, Dominicans, Franciscans, Mercedarians, Augustinians, and Jesuits began to arrive in Peru. However, the intensity of evangelization seen in Mexico was not reproduced in early Peru. One factor may have been the low quality and inadequate numbers of priests that arrived in the Andes (Burkholder and Johnson 2012). Then, paralyzing divisions emerged among the clergy as how to carry out conversion. For the Dominicans and Augustinians, conversion required finding a common ground between Catholic and Andean beliefs as a means of “gentle persuasion” to correct religious error (Andrien 2001; Duviols and Itier 1993). Contrastingly, Jesuits such as José de Acosta called for the destruction of the “simple-minded” and “brutish” Andean idols, pagan rituals, and the imposition of rigid Catholic orthodoxy (MacCormack 1991:261–263). In any multilayered transcultural confrontation, hybridization was inevitable (sensu Card 2013). By the crisis years of the 1560s, most Andeans incorporated some basic European cultural and religious precepts into their cultural consciousness. Taki Onqoy (dance of disease) in the mid-1560s was a hybrid ideology that held that an impending resurrection of pre-Hispanic huacas would destroy the Europeans and their God, usher in a glorious Christ-like second coming of the Inka, and reestablish indigenous rule (MacCormack 1991; Saignes 1999; Stern 1982). A 2-year anti-idolatry campaign that destroyed Taki Onqoy was followed with a New World version of the Spanish Inquisition: the extirpation of idolatries. The first of three sustained and intense waves of extirpation spanned 1608–1627 and was headed by the infamous, brutal, and corrupt clergyman Francisco de Avila. In 1641, Archbishop of Lima Pedro de Villagómez has ignited a second wave of extirpation that lasted 30  years to eliminate the unpredictable mixes of Christian and local dogma found throughout the Andes. The final stages of extirpation unfolded between 1671 and 1750. In the end, the “spiritual conquest” of the Andes achieved little more than a religious decapitation (Gareis 1999; Saignes 1999). The official state religion of the Inka elite was destroyed, while the local and regional practices were beyond the scope of the early religious attacks. This allowed them to grow and entrench just under the surface (Griffiths 1996:8). Instead of victory for the church, a dynamic compromise seems to have emerged throughout indigenous Peru after a 300-year struggle. Seen another way, the extirpation was a defeat for the Spanish who failed to transform Andeans into archetypal Catholic subjects (Gareis 1999:245).

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This compromise occurred in the setting of a highly syncretic Andean Christianities that emerged throughout Colonial Peru, taking distinct forms through time and space (e.g., Albó and Calla 1996; Arnold 1996; Cánepa 1996; Griffiths 1996; Klaus 2013; MacCormack 1991; Saignes 1999). For example, in the Quechua-­ Aymara heartland, some had constructed a dualistic Christianity, with Christ, the Virgin, and the saints (as splinters of the sun) as one half and the chthonic mountain divinities as the other (Saignes 1999:120). Others conflated tripartite Andean spirits with the Holy Trinity interpreted as the fruit of the Sun-God and the Virgin Moon who procreated the Sun-Christ, who was either younger or older brother of the devil (Saignes 1999:114; also consider indigenous art depicting three-headed or tripartite Christs [MacCormack 1991:272, Fig. 31]). Statues of saints were understood to be huacas. Perhaps one of the best-known syncretisms involved the blending of the pre-Hispanic Pachacamac cult with the Señor de los Milagros (Rostworowski 1998). Postcontact Peruvian religion was sometimes a tool used by the subordinated as an ideological weapon. The Taki Onqoy was the most unmistakable intersection of hybrid religion, political consciousness, and resistance in the early Colonial Andes, but many other smaller scale and even quotidian religious actions were intentionally subversive (Saignes 1999:121–127).

3  T  he Colonial Experience in the Lambayeque Valley Complex The Lambayeque Valley Complex was paradoxically a peripheral region far from the principal centers of postcontact Peru, but it was a vital center of economic activity. In 1532, Pizarro and his band of mercenaries marched through the valley complex, taking note of the area as they passed through Olmos (27 September), Motupe (28 September), Jayanca (2 October) Túcume and Llampeyec (Lambayeque) (3 October), and Zaña (5 October) (Mendoza 1985:178–179). Following the passage of this peculiar band of strangers, the initial impacts of the conquest were probably almost nil in Lambayeque. That began to change in 1534 when the city of Trujillo was founded as the north coast’s administrative center, and in the same year, Pizarro issued the first encomienda land grants that began to divide up the Lambayeque region. Later administrational divisions followed. Lands north of the pueblo of Lambayeque were administered as part of the corregimiento of Zaña, with the repartimientos of Cinto y Chiclayo, Chuspocallanca, Reque, and Collique managed under the larger (though more distant) corregimiento of Chicama. North coast ethnohistoric documentation is limited especially when compared to the southern highlands. The north coast never had a dedicated Spanish or indigenous chronicler (e.g., Cieza de León 1998 [1553]; Cobo 1990 [1653]; Guaman Poma de Ayala 1980[1615]). Also, direct analogies between the southern highland ethnohistory and the north coast are not possible, since the north coast is historically, linguistically, socially, and ethnically distinct. Fortunately, pertinent information exists but is highly dispersed and incomplete. For example, in his study of

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Chimú ethnohistory, Rowe (1948) perceptively argued for the persistence of ancient religious customs, farming techniques, ceramic production, and technology in the seventeenth century north coast. Subsequent analyses of legal documents, census data, wills, and other non-systematic accounts (e.g., Ramírez 1974, 1996) has been vital to understanding the basic situation in Colonial Lambayeque.

3.1  Demographic Transformation One of the principle factors contributing to the indigenous socioeconomic disarticulation of the Colonial north coast of Peru was depopulation. It is assumed that the immediate contact era generation in Lambayeque was ravaged by disease and initiated demographic collapse. In 1540, Spanish visitador Sebastián de la Gama arrived in the encomienda of Jayanca where, in one town, 12 of the 20 dwellings were abandoned. He encountered other small indigenous hamlets described as demolished, fallen, and ruined towns that had been thriving just 8 years before (Ramírez 1996:27–29). Census data developed from a variety of archival sources examined by Cook (1981) and Ramírez (1996) document clear population reduction in sixteenth-­century Lambayeque. While these data almost certainly reflect broad demographic realities, specific data must be approached with caution. For example, kurakas complained that following the visita of Cuenca (1566–1567) intentional over-numeration counted children, the elderly, and the dead to increase the amount of mandated tribute (Ramírez 1996:33). Conversely, local Spanish authorities were also periodically guilty of deflating population counts so as to retain greater proportions of tribute for personal profit, while clergy had a vested interest in embellishing the number of souls they saved. Still, depopulation is clear, but its dynamics were not straightforward. In many ways, the narrow and circumscribed coastal river valleys such as the Moche or Nepeña regions, for example, were ideal “disease reactors” that provided the physiogeography and dense populations that would produce maximum mortality from introduced pathogens (Cook 1981:143). Even though Lambayeque had the largest coastal population of all well into the Colonial Period, the valley complex was far more spread out, and the population was more diffuse. Thus, unlike the Piura region to the north where population declined approximately 90 percent in the 55 years following contact, demographic decline in the Lambayeque Valley Complex was nowhere near as severe. On the north coast, either typhus or plague produced heavy death tolls in 1546. This was followed by an epidemic series including measles, smallpox, and “el peste” from 1558 to 1561 (Cook 1981:135–136). Corresponding population pyramids reconstructed for 1572 indicate few individuals over the age of 59 (that is to say, few surviving members of the generation born before 1513) and far fewer children than required to maintain a stable population (Cook 1981:136). The worst hit area appears to have been the encomienda of Jayanca whose native populations fell by 81 percent from 1575 to 1602 (Cook 1981:131).

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Some population losses were disease-related. However, not all declines, especially in the Lambayeque Valley Complex, were attributable to disease. Some demographic changes were fueled by migration. Cook (1981:131) describes heavy migration of working men in the 1590s with highly unbalanced sex ratios in repartimientos of Chiclayo, Chuspocallana, and Reque as men flooded (willingly or otherwise) into the vineyards, cotton plantations, and olive orchards between Lambayeque and Collique. It was not uncommon for natives to relocate from one encomienda or repartimiento to another within the Lambayeque region as they attempted to flee excessive labor or tribute demands. Moreover, some repartimientos with strong economic foundations and those managed by the Crown were demographically stable (Cook 1981:143–144). One example can be seen in the Crown repartimiento of Olmos on the northern fringes of the Lambayeque Complex was a large (ca. 1595 inhabitants in the 1570s) and economically strong hub on the north-south transport route and was a major center of mule breeding for Piura-Lima trade. From 1572 to 1602, the total population of Olmos dropped 0.2 percent annually. Cook (1981:132). Simultaneously, the nearby private encomienda of Copiz was in virtual freefall. Fleeing tributaries, not disease, were likely responsible for the loss. On a more regional scope, the same principle appears to have applied: depopulation was markedly less pronounced in coastal areas with economic potential (Cook 1981:131–132). There was a much stronger local economy in San Miguel de Piura than Copiz (as one comparison) where little opportunity existed and outmigration (not death by epidemic) drove depopulation. By the 1630s, Lambayeque populations appear to have stabilized and a slow demographic rebound initiated.

3.2  Alterations of the Sociopolitical Landscape Sociopolitical changes were probably quite minimal during the first decade or two following conquest. These first interactions were through the filter of the encomienda, where Muchik peoples and other natives continued to work under the direction of foreign officials, built the encomendero’s house, and farmed his fields (Ramírez 1996:27). Native agricultural practices did not change. Various social disruptions stemmed from depopulation. Lambayeque was a frontier: it did not receive many royal visitas and was outside the purview of constant attention. As the Spanish population increased, so too did native labor extraction. Native labor was ‘free,’ and as time went on, unregulated encomenderos issued increasingly burdensome tribute quotas. By 1540, the stress of the Colonial reality began to assert itself. Ramírez (1996) describes in detail various ramifications of the socioeconomic transformations experienced in the early Colonial Lambayeque Valley Complex. One of the most significant involved altering the role of traditional kurakas from that of a paramount lord to a tribute collector and cultural broker. The organization of these lordships in the early Colonial Lambayeque region was still based on the principle of

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the pre-­Hispanic parcialidad (meaning “part of a whole”) (Netherly 1984, 1990). Until the 1540s, parcialidades functioned relatively normally and continued to integrate social, economic, and religious functions and reproduced ethnic identities (Netherly 1984:231). Under this system, kurakas entrusted their lands to lesser lords and households. For the lack of a better word, subjects were obliged to pay “rent” for their land and irrigation water in the form of corn, cloth, and human labor to the kuraka in recognition of his hegemony (Ramírez 1996:18–19). In return, kurakas owed their subjects “good governance” and provided their people largescale festivities, feasts, and chicha beer. Obligations between rulers and subjects were mutually reinforcing and interdependent. The transformation of the kuraka in postcontact Lambayeque and the north coast in general was swift and beyond their control. Granting of encomiendas gave Spaniards the “right” to appropriate native labor that displaced and fragmented local political organization. Parcialidades were scrambled, broken up, and shuffled about by reducciones that congregated and mixed previously separate groups. Decrees by Cuenca in the 1560s forbade kurakas to practice many traditional roles while further damaging ruler-subject obligations. Spanish authorities began to replace uncooperative lords and to appoint someone who would carry out their policies or they would be tried and executed (Ramírez 1996:34). In order to maintain their office, kurakas began to sacrifice the well-being of their subjects which eventually spiraled into mistreatment and abuse. Increasingly, commoners were made to work by fiat for the Colonial administration and not for the well-being of their community. In this setting, the common people began to pursue solutions of their own. Inhabitants of Pacora left for Túcume to avoid their annual tribute of 600 pieces of cloth. Túcume lost population to Motupe, Reque peoples fled into Collique, Chuspo, and Lambayeque, and Ferreñafe residents were documented in Raco, Reque, and Chuspo (Ramírez 1996:35–36). The “wandering Indian” phenomenon was made worse by kurakas who sought to swell their numbers by enticing those disembodied from their native parcialidad. Predictably, this led to internal disorder and the collapse of indigenous systems of socioeconomic reciprocity.

3.3  Economic Restructuring and Ecological Strain Related to the social transformation, deep economic restructuring was underway by the 1560s on the north coast of Peru. A main component involved the transplantation of European agribusiness, labor, and land tenure systems. Reducciones were informally instituted in the Lambayeque Valley Complex as early as 1534 (Mendoza 1985) well in advance of the Toledan era. This profound settlement pattern rupture involved compulsory relocation of the many dispersed Muchik hamlets and villages (some consisting of just three or four extended families) and into large aggregated settlements such as Jayanca, Firruñap (Ferreñafe), Reque, Chiclayo, and many others.

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A hidden agenda involved forcing Muchik peoples off of their rich farmlands inland—opening up those territories to livestock and production of cash crops such as wheat and sugarcane. The lands “given” to the resettled natives were usually close to the sea, plagued by high water tables, salinity, fog, and clouds that contributed to a marginal growing season at best, and some were even chased from their fields by ranchers (Ramírez 1996:30, 73–74). Access to both cosmologically vital ancestral lands and economically vital microenvironments was at once severed. One community of Lambayeque fisherfolk (Callanca) was resettled inland and expected to farm. Predictably, they abandoned their new homes, scattered, and returned to the shore. Similarly, another group was moved to “sickly” terrain where an encomendero complained some 200 of his natives died (Ramírez 1996:31). The Spanish also failed to perceive the absence of native settlements in floodplains where many early reducciones and European-style towns were founded. Devastation followed in the 1578 El Niño floods as Túcume Viejo was one of many settlements that were destroyed. Many Spanish encomenderos saw little opportunity in the Lambayeque countryside beyond ranching that became the central economic activity. By 1537, large ranches were established in Zaña, Pacora, and Picsi that quickly became centers for the raising of many thousands of cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats that intensely exploited natural vegetation (Ramírez 1996:62–64). By the mid-seventeenth century, emphasis began to shift from ranching to sugar as the sugar boom began. By the 1720s, six major sugarcane plantations or haciendas had been established. All were located in the fertile alluvium of the Valle Viejo and were privately owned except for the hacienda of Tuman that was operated by the Jesuits (Ramírez 1974:9). These estates encompassed vast tracts of land, at the center of which was the owner’s mansion, processing houses, trapiches (grinding mills), warehouses, workers living quarters, and a church. Industrial-scale sugarcane production in Colonial Lambayeque was technologically inefficient, labor-intensive, and environmentally unfriendly (Ramírez 1974:14–16). They consumed large amounts of natural resources including massive volumes of water. Sugarcane and other introduced crops such as alfalfa were so water-­hungry that Muchik farmers often had little water for subsistence farming, and in dry years, many Muchik lacked drinking water (Ramírez 1996). Hacienda monoculture ensured soils were exhausted after one or two planting/cutting cycles. The boiling and purifying stages of sugar production also required large and continuous quantities of firewood (Ramírez 1974:15) fueling continued deforestation, erosion, and desertification in the valley. While labor on the sugarcane estates was primarily extracted from enslaved Africans. Muchik peoples increasingly supplemented hacienda labor pools by 1700, often recruited through their kurakas acting as middlemen (Ramírez 1974:18, 31–32). Indigenous peoples served on Lambayeque haciendas as mitayos. Later, natives from as far as Piura were employed as unskilled wage laborers in Lambayeque in both occasional and emergency projects such as canal construction, cleaning, and repair (Ramírez 1974:18). The sugar estates of the Lambayeque

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region had become a vital component of local, regional, and viceregal economies with their sugar eventually consumed as far away as Buenos Aires. From 1720 to 1800, the global sugar market declined. In Lambayeque, prosperity gave way to stagnation, decline, and ruin. Decreasing prices, increasing production costs, and natural disasters (catastrophic El Niño floods of 1720 and 1728) contributed to the downturn. During the 1720 El Niño floods, herds of livestock drowned, entire crops of cane and alfalfa were uprooted, and irrigation networks were severely damaged (Ramírez 1996:213). Cayalti was completely destroyed. Not a single house remained in Zaña, which until that point served as a symbol of Colonial prosperity (Ramírez 1974:33). Lambayeque haciendas accumulated paralyzing debts, went bankrupt, and the landed local elite crumbled. The last 80 years of Colonial-era Lambayeque was marked by severe economic and social dislocation.

3.4  Religion and Resistance Unlike the economic and administrational records, ethnohistoric knowledge of religion in the Colonial Lambayeque region is very minimal, and only recently have archaeological perspectives emerged (Klaus 2013; Klaus and Tam 2015; Klaus and Alvarez-Calderón 2017; Kennedy and VanValkenburgh 2016; VanValkenburgh et al. 2015a, b). Partly, this lacuna owes to the fact that scholarly investigations followed what exists in the remaining trail of document: information on labor organization and land tenure. Among the first churches were those established by the Franciscan order as early as a pair of small ramadas in 1536 at Mórrope and Pacora. Comparatively massive churches soon followed, such as Santa Lucia in Ferreñafe (1552), San Pedro in Lambayeque, a Franciscan convent in Chiclayo (1555), Nuestra Señora de Collique (1559), and the church of Santa Maria in Chiclayo (Mendoza 1985). Examples of religious oppression appear infrequently in the ethnohistoric record. Passages in his Ordenanzas de Jayanca produced from the 1566 vísita of Gregorio Gonzales de Cuenca strictly forbade indigenous religion and its practice and focused particularly negative attention toward its practitioners (Figueroa and Idrogo 2004:117–118). An example of one relationship between north coast priests and natives was recorded in a 1732 listing of complaints. In the Chicama valley town of Santa Mária Magdalena de Cao, the Dominican friar Félix de Moncada forced his indigenous parishioners into slave labor on his sugarcane plantation, diverted community irrigation water, and grazed his goats on native lands (Andrien 2001:186). Heyerdahl et  al. (1995:212–213) relate modern Túcume lore describing how the early Colonial Spaniards would terrorize the local people into converting to Christianity by riding in at night on horses dressed as demons. Spaniards also were said to have periodically set large bonfires—visible for miles around—atop the huacas at Túcume. They decreed the grand pre-Hispanic precinct as the physical ­gateway to hell, lending it its modern name “El Purgatorio.” Further, Túcume

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residents who resisted conversion or persisted in pre-Hispanic ritual life were dragged from their homes and said to have been burned at the stake in the nocturnal infernos. Among archaeologically documented masses of charcoal, carbonized wood, and vitrified glass atop Huaca Larga were quantities of calcined human remains (Heyerdahl et al. 1995). This finding is coincident with the oral histories. Other traditions and local lore seem to have incorporated Christian discourse. In Eten, a series of three apparitions featuring the Christ child were said to have occurred in 1649 but featured local Andean undertones. Other events, such as the origin of the Cruz de Motupe and the miracle of flowing water in Mórrope in 1752 all appear to include both elements of pre-Hispanic beliefs and myths blended into a Christian framework.

4  Conclusion This chapter provided a broad outline of some of social, economic, and ethnohistoric contexts of the postconquest adaptive transition in Peru and the Lambayeque Valley Complex in particular. Upheaval of fourteen and a half millennia of Andean cultural trajectories were disrupted by the Spanish invasion and its aftermath. This was truly a transformative phenomenon, far different than pre-Hispanic shifts from foraging to farming, experimentations with urbanism, or the development of social inequality. This chapter explored key elements and themes of the postcontact transition on multiple scales, from its historical ebb and flow to pertinent demographic, social, ideological, and economic dimensions. Of course, foodways represent the literal foundation of all economic and adaptive regimes. The next three chapters focus on the results of an osteological and stable isotope analysis of a large sample of human remains from four Lambayeque Valley Complex sites that uniquely tell the story of these transitions. The explicit aim is to reconstruct diet and examine diet-related biological stress across three millennia of cultural development and change. In particular, we aim to examine the impact of Spanish conquest and colonialism on Lambayeque Valley diets and diet-related stress and interpret the impact on continuity and/or change in foodways against a backdrop of pre-­Hispanic diets in the north coast region as a whole.

The Lambayeque Biohistory Project: Contexts and Analysis

Central Andean civilization as a whole represents the culmination of complex and continuous interplay, a creative dynamism, of natural and cultural factors that, taken together, are without parallel. Shimada (1985:xi)

The study of paleodiet and its effects on health and well-being is fundamental to understanding the economy, social structure, history, habitus, and body politic of past populations. As discussed in the chapter “Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes,” eating is a daily necessity dependent on the particular ecological opportunities and obstacles presented by a given set of environments, the technologies and expertise employed by the groups within them, and the nutritional needs of those within a given group. However, eating is about so much more than nutrient intake and the calculus of effort, risk, and return. It is also a space of tradition, innovation, diffusion, and practice that is deeply infused with meaning. This interlocking duality of biological and cultural sustenance makes it all the more important to utilize an explicitly biocultural focus when reconstructing and interpreting diet and its physical effects in antiquity (Armelagos 1987; Armelagos 1994; Roosevelt 1987), particularly across millennia of cultural and biological evolution (Eaton et  al. 2002; Eaton et  al. 1997; Nestle 1999; Turner and Thompson 2013). In bioarchaeology, as in biological anthropology and archaeology more broadly, this biocultural approach often involves a feedback loop. Methods often dictate what questions can be translated into testable hypotheses to provide insights into how larger social theories play out on the ground, so to speak, in different cultural and temporal contexts. Bioarchaeological research utilizes distinct and complementary methods for studying paleodiet and paleononutrition in order to better understand the interplay between subsistence, foodways, and health outcomes. This chapter presents the immediate contextual grounding of our analysis of the four sites in the Lambayeque Biohistory Project. We start with an overview of the project itself and the four sites from which the human remains analyzed here are drawn. We then discuss aspects of sample size, mortuary context, and demographic © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B. L. Turner, H. D. Klaus, Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42614-9_6

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structure relevant to our analysis. The chapter concludes with an overview of the methods and analyses that we used to reconstruct diet and diet-related stress in the Lambayeque Valley Complex.

1  L  ambayeque Biohistory Project Sites and Bioarchaeological Samples The Lambayeque Biohistory Project is an interdisciplinary bioarchaeological research program founded by one of us (HDK) in 2002 and centers on excavation and analysis of archaeological contexts in the Lambayeque region of Peru’s northern north coast. The Lambayeque Biohistory Project includes members from Peru, Japan, Canada, Australia, and the United States with expertise in archaeological excavation, mortuary analysis, paleogenomics, paleoproteomics, isotope biogeochemistry, paleopathology, and paleodemography. The overall aims of the project are to provide a basic characterization of human biology and culture over the history of human occupation of the Lambayeque region. Particular emphasis has been placed on the nature of major adaptive transitions, human-environment interplay, social complexity, and inequality through the study of biological stress, diet, trauma, physical activity, funerary rituals, genetic variation, and population history. The project has been generously funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Rust Family Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, and our home universities from 2003 to the present. The project has to date undertaken excavations and/or analysis of 3100 individuals from 24 sites spanning 1500 BCE to 1750 CE. In this book, we focus upon four of these sites. Not only are these contexts those for which we have obtained both oral health and isotopic data, but these sites uniquely bear witness to major events in the history of Lambayeque itself and that of Andean civilization more broadly. One of us (HDK) directed the excavations and mortuary analysis and laboratory-­ based data collection (e.g., estimating age at death, biological sex, documenting pathological conditions). The other of us (BLT) conducted all sample preparation for stable isotope mass spectrometry along with trained students and analyzed all of the resulting isotopic data. Importantly, the Lambayeque Biohistory Project has always worked in partnership with Peruvian scholars, museums, and Peru’s Ministerio de Cultura (formerly Instituto Nacional de Cultura). All samples included in the analyses and results described here were collected and exported to the United States for destructive analysis in the Bioarchaeology Laboratory at Georgia State University in accordance with permits and permissions issued by the Ministerio de Cultura.

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1.1  Ventarrón The Ventarrón Archaeological Complex is located in the fertile lower Reque valley, 710 km north of modern-day Lima. This multicomponent site is unique. It bears witness to both the origins of complex societies in the Lambayeque region and their evolution into the late pre-Hispanic era (Alva Meneses 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013). Said another way, Ventarrón provides a remarkable and unique cross section—a microcosm—of virtually all the complex pre-Hispanic social developments in Lambayeque history. Huaca Ventarrón itself featured a centrally placed monumental mound, that in its final form, had a footprint of 62,000 m2 and rose to a height of 18 m (Fig. 1). The Huaca itself was clearly a major regional ritual locus during Peru’s precocious Late Preceramic era. The proclivity for monumental construction projects along Peru’s central and southern north coast region (e.g., Caral, Sechín Alto) unquestionably extended to here as well. Huaca Ventarrón served intensely ritual functions and, by extension, profound socioreligious purposes. It was first constructed between 3000 and 2800 BCE atop a large rocky outcrop in ways that strongly suggest multiple dualism-related symbolisms including a platform mound-mountain dyad. A small temple featuring a central ventilated hearth was the focus of a religious activity that involved the ritual burning and destruction/transformation of offerings. Ventarrón’s structure increased in height and width over five construction phases until roughly 1800 BCE. In every phase, tall staircases led to a central temple-like enclosure atop the building. Decorations included low-relief clay representations of a possum-like creature, fish, and the earliest known polychrome mural in the Americas depicting

Fig. 1  The primary structure of the Ventarrón Archaeological Complex is Huaca Ventarrón itself, a monumental civic-ceremonial center in the mid/lower Reque river drainage. It was occupied between 3000/2800 and 1800 BCE. This isometric reconstruction depicts Huaca Ventarrón as it appeared during its final phase of occupation and fourth construction phase before it was abandoned and then used as a burial ground into the fourteenth century CE. (Image by and courtesy of Ignacio Alva de Meneses)

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what appears to be a ritual deer hunt (Alva Meneses 2012). Huaca Ventarrón was abandoned not long after 1800 BCE, and stratigraphic evidence suggests this process coincided with an El Niño event involving extensive rainfall and erosion of the final building phase. Not long after, monumental construction projects resumed. This time, it was initiated a kilometer to the west at the twin huacas of Collud-Zarpán. At Collud, Cupisnique peoples around 1500–1000 BCE constructed a three-tiered monumental platform mound measuring 140 m × 70 m and reached 7 m in height. Huaca Collud featured an enormous 25-step staircase and a high-relief polychrome mural in Cupisnique style depicting various creatures and cosmological symbolisms (Alva Meneses 2012, p 195–199). The Zarpán component is even more sprawling, covering 24 ha. to the east of Collud. There, the Formative era constructions included a south-facing, stone-slab façade on the main structure that was 50 m long and up to 2.5 m high. There was also a stone-lined underground canal or conduit at Zarpán. These two latter observations, along with the crude arrangement of the stone slabs, are quite reminiscent of the construction at the highland Chavín de Huantar and perhaps signal some degree of participation in the Chavín world and its water cult (Alva Meneses 2013). There is no identifiable Salinar occupation at Ventarrón, and a Gallinazo presence is very ephemeral. The record picks back up with a Late Moche presence primarily centered at the El Arenal Complex that was revisited not for residential purposes but for the construction of a small temple complex and surrounding burial ground. By Middle Sicán times, Zarpán was reoccupied as a trio of large adobe truncated pyramids was built. These represent the final construction phases at the Ventarrón Archaeological Complex. Huaca Ventarrón was not a place for the dead, and no funerary contexts were documented between 2300 and 1800 BCE. Yet, throughout the rest of the cultural sequence, the dead were interred into and around the abandoned huacas. Likely this has much to do with the “sacred character of ruins” concept as articulated by Millaire (2015) that appears throughout north coast prehistory. It was also a way of literally inserting the dead into an ancestral landscape to make claims about identity, political legitimacy, territory, and cosmology. Consequently, the mortuary sample derived from the Ventarrón Complex appears to represent nothing less than a diachronic microcosm chronicling the development of social complexity from the Cupisnique to the apex of Andean social complexity. Tragically, a fire originating from a nearby sugar cane field recently caused heavy damage to the Huaca Ventarrón site itself and destroyed the on-site labs and curation facilities. The loss of most of the artifactual and human skeletal collections is irreparable (Times 2017), making analyses of the surviving data all the more important.

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1.2  Chotuna-Huaca de Los Sacrificios The Huaca de Los Sacrificios is in the Chotuna sector of the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological Complex. Among the largest sites in the Lambayeque Valley Complex, it contains monumental platform mounds, ceremonial spaces, craft production facilitates, temples, and palaces (Donnan 2012; Wester 2010). Construction at the site began during the Middle Sicán period and was significantly expanded by the Chimú during the Late Intermediate Period (1375–1470  CE) before the Inka assumed control of it during the Late Horizon (1450–1532 CE). The site was abandoned in the early decades following European conquest (Donnan 2012). Chotuna-­ Chornancap appears to have served as a major secondary political center during each phase and was surrounded by hundreds of residential and production sites associated with the local Muchik ethnic group. Excavations at the site under the direction of Peruvian archaeologists Carlos Wester and Fausto Saldaña from 2008 to 2011 uncovered the remains of 57 individuals in both the Chotuna and Chornancap sectors that were violently killed as part of sacrificial rites (Klaus et al. 2016). The 33 people sacrificed at the Chotuna-­ Huaca de los Sacrificios were demographically dominated by young- and middle-­ adult females and subadults exhibiting varied patterns of perimortem traumatic injuries produced by throat slitting, chest opening, and heart ablation (Fig.  2).

Fig. 2  An isometric reconstruction of Huaca de los Sacrificios, one of the smaller monumental adobe platform mounds at the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological Complex, lower Lambayeque River valley. The skeletal sample of 33 Inka-era sacrificial interments was recovered from five different locations throughout the structure. (Image by Roy Gutiérrez and courtesy of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnografía Hans Heinrich Brüning)

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Entomological evidence indicates that most of the bodies were allowed to partially decompose and desiccate for at least 1 month preceding interment.

1.3  San Pedro de Mórrope Mórrope is a small but growing town 803 km north of modern-day Lima, on the extreme northwest edge of the Lambayeque Valley Complex. It abuts the Sechura Desert, and its landscape is characterized by saline and nutrient-poor soils and water insecurity. The Capilla (chapel) of San Pedro de Mórrope (hereafter CSPM) and its cemetery were established in June 1536  CE—less than 4  years after the initial Spanish invasion. It was abandoned sometime between 1720 and 1751 CE (Fig. 3). The intervening historical record is principally drawn from just one manuscript written by the priest Modesto Rubiños (Rubiños y Andrade 1782 [1936]). The narrative portrays Mórrope going back to the sixteenth century as a marginalized Muchik community burdened by conflicts over water access and Spanish labor demands. On 29 June 1536, less than 4 years after the Spanish invasion, the CSPM had been established in its first incarnation as a mission church. Mórrope’s 1532

Fig. 3  A view of the front of the Chapel of San Pedro de Mórrope (CSPM). The 1998 El Niño event severely damaged the long-abandoned chapel to the point of catastrophic collapse. Following the 2017 “coastal Niño,” new rainfall-related damage was incurred to the extensive restoration work conducted in the mid-2000s. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

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population of 698 people soon swelled to nearly 1900 when other communities were resettled via reducción into Mórrope in the 1560s (Gómez 2003). The mission church was at some point remodeled into a Spanish Catholic ramada-­style church on the outside. It is composed of a nave and sacristy 45 m long and 16.5 m wide and is aligned 11.0 degrees off true north, oriented to the north-­northwest. The principal building material is adobe brick and mud mortar, which had been covered by several layers of white plaster, each layer presumably representing a remodeling or refacing event. The maximum height of its low-pitched roof is 5 m. Inside, indigenous construction technology styles were used including horcón Y-shaped roof supports (a building technology going back at least to Middle Moche times) and a stepped pyramid altar. The form of the altar relates to one of the longest-lived pre-Hispanic iconographic motifs representing a huaca-mountain dyad (Klaus 2013). The building itself is an unambiguous hybrid between local and foreign styles. In April 2003, initial architectural survey, restoration, and archaeological study were conducted at the CSPM (Fernández 2004). A 3-month excavation season in 2004 was co-directed between Haagen Klaus and Peruvian archaeologist Manuel Tam as part of the Lambayeque Biohistory Project. Follow-up large-scale excavations were conducted between June and September 2005.

1.4  Eten Located in the extreme southwest corner of the Lambayeque Valley Complex, the Colonial era settlement of Eten supposedly had its origins as Muchik fishing village known as Ätim or Ätin. Local lore states that in the 1530s, a Franciscan missionary began construction on mission church (Salas 2004) by the mouth of the Reque river approximately 16 km southwest of Chiclayo and 660 km north of Lima. At some point, a reducción was established at this location and was renamed Santa Maria de Magdalena de Eten, or simply, Eten. The immediate environs contain a 5000-year cultural sequence spanning Preceramic shell mounds through the Chimú occupation (Alva 1985a; Elera 1986; Klaus et al. 2010). Eten also sits on a unique ecotone, straddling resource-rich marine, coastal, riverine, and lagoon microenvironments. It is a significant contrast to the remote and marginal setting of Mórrope. Eten is a few hundred meters off the beach, and a microenvironment rich in freshwater sources and both terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity surrounds the mouth the Reque river. The town’s late sixteenth-century population of nearly 1000 people appears to have been one of the more demographically and economically stable communities of the Lambayeque region (Cook 1981; Ramírez 1996). In the early 1600s, the town had outgrown its mission church. A larger and more elaborate church was then constructed to accommodate the growing community and named the Capilla de Santa María de Magdalena de Eten (hereafter, CSMME). This was a fairly large church measuring 60 m in length, 12.8 m wide, and featuring its own bell tower (Fig. 4). It was within this church that, in 1649, a trio of famous mystical apparitions of the Christ child (the Divino Niño) reportedly occurred. These were confirmed by church

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Fig. 4  The Chapel of Santa Maria de Magdalena de Eten (CSMME) is seen here during the early phases of excavation in August 2009. Only the foundations of the bell tower remained above ground, while below, an intact Middle/Late Colonial era cemetery was found under the remnants of the church floor. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

officials from Chiclayo at the CSMME (Rubiños y Andrade 1782 [1936]). This bestowed widespread notoriety and Eten became a pilgrimage site continuing to this day. Eten was abandoned sometime between 1740 and 1760. While local legend invokes the role of a devastating tsunami, stratigraphic evidence instead suggests the encroachment of sand dunes was the primary impetus for the town fissioning and relocating to two distinct areas within a few kilometers of the original site. Another miraculous experience is recounted in local lore involving the Christ child saving a stricken vessel just off the beach in 1776. The ship’s captain, Miguel Castillo, built a new chapel directly atop the ruins of the abandoned town to commemorate the event and christened it the Chapel of the Niño Serranito (hereafter CNS) (Fig. 5). The CNS was never apparently an active or consecrated church, but served as a spiritual monument until abandonment around 1900. Excavations by the Lambayeque Biohistory Project between 2009 and 2011 aimed to document a Late Colonial/Republican era mortuary sample at the CNS, but instead uncovered the first mission church underneath the CNS as noted. Just as in Mórrope, two cemeteries at Eten were below the chapel floors.

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Fig. 5  The front of the Capilla del Niño Serranito de Eten (CNS), which was first erected around the year 1776. However, excavations demonstrated that this structure was built directly atop the ruins of the first mission church in Eten that was operational from the 1530s/15040s to around 1620. Underneath its floor, an intact Early/Middle Colonial era mortuary assemblage and skeletal sample was documented. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

2  The Skeletal Samples The skeletal samples drawn upon in this work were excavated from the aforementioned sites of the Ventarrón Archaeological Complex, Huaca de los Sacrificios, San Pedro de Mórrope (CSPM), the Chapel of the Niño Serranito (CNS), and Capilla de Santa María de Magdalena de Eten (CSMME). Preservation overall was generally quite good, though skeletons at the CNS and CSMME were fragmented but mostly complete. The complete skeletal sample at Ventarrón consisted of 211 individuals (Ventarrón N = 69; Arenal N = 61; Collud N = 27; Zarpán N = 57) (Figs. 6 and 7). From the various occupations of each of each site, stratigraphic and stylistic elements were correlated to established radiometric assays. A total of 41 burials dated to the Formative/Cupisnique era (ca. 1800–650  BCE), the Gallinazo period (ca. 200 BCE–100 CE) (N = 5), the Late Moche era (ca. 550–800 CE) (N = 46), the Middle Sicán period (CE 900–1050/1100) (n  =  38), the Late Sicán occupation (1050/1100–ca. 1375  CE) (N  =  13), and the Chimú period (ca. 1375–1470  CE) (N = 1). The remaining number of burials at Ventarrón could not be assigned a temporal affiliation due to damage from looting. The Ventarrón Archaeological Complex burials all appear to have been non-elite individuals in their respective societies and, thus, represent a diachronic cross section of these cultures. At least

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Fig. 6  Ventarrón 2008 Tomb 16 is a representative Formative era (Cupisnique culture) burial from this site (ca. 1500–650 BCE). The individual was placed in a semi-flexed position, hands drawn up to the chest, and they were buried with a single blackware ceramic bottle behind their head. (Photo by and courtesy of Ignacio Alva de Meneses)

Fig. 7  Huaca Zarpán Burial NE U IIX Entierro 8, Middle Sicán period (900–1050/1100 CE). This individual’s funerary context demonstrates the typical pattern of an extended burial placed on a cardinal axis (most of the time, north-south), though this burial is unique in its east-west orientation and a lack of grave goods. (Photo by and courtesy of Ignacio Alva de Meneses)

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Fig. 8  Examples of sacrifice victim burials at the Huaca de los Sacrificios (ca. 1470–1532 CE): Burials 1 thru 3 (left; photo by Haagen Klaus), and Burials 27 thru 33 (right top and bottom; photos by Fausto Saldaña and courtesy of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnografía Hans Heinrich Brüning)

for the late pre-Hispanic Sicán and Chimú periods, funerary rituals and dental morphology independently signal that all the individuals were members of the local Muchik ethnic group. The sample from the Huaca de los Sacrificios contained the skeletal remains of 33 individuals securely dating to the Inka occupation of the Lambayeque region (ca. 1470–1532 CE) (Fig. 8). Again, multiple lines of biological and contextual evidence demonstrate that they were non-elite members of the local Muchik ethnic group. The postcontact or Colonial Period skeletal samples are represented by individuals from Mórrope and Eten (Figs. 9 and 10). At CSPM, 322 funerary contexts were documented and contained the remains of at least 871 individuals (Klaus 2008). Archaeological context, sex distribution, and age distribution of this assemblage indicate this is a representative sample of the local Muchik population (Klaus 2008). Furthermore, stratigraphy and seriation allowed for further subdivision of the CSPM sample into Early/Middle Colonial (ca. 1536–1640 CE) and Middle/Late Colonial Period (ca. 1640–1750) temporal affiliations for the burials.

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Fig. 9  Early/Middle Colonial Period funerary contexts from Mórrope (Unit 7, Sacristy). Most individuals in this phase were buried in simple cotton shrouds, though some use of wooden coffins were observed. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

In Eten and at the CNS, an Early/Middle Colonial cemetery was defined, and 253 funerary contexts were documented and recovered. Along with additional isolated bones, disturbed contexts, and small-scale commingled assemblages, the CNS sample contained the remains of a total of at least 450 individuals. This sample is contemporaneous with the Early/Middle Colonial phase in Mórrope. At the CSMME in Eten, we recovered a sample of 256 burials that represented the remains of at least 308 individuals. The CSMME sample is contemporaneous with the Middle/Late Colonial phase in Mórrope (Fig. 11).

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Fig. 10  Funerary contexts from Middle/Late Colonial Period strata at Mórrope (Unit 12, Nave). Coffin burial was quite common by this time. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

Fig. 11  Burial patterns in Eten shared a number of the Spanish Catholic features practiced in Mórrope (while differing quite significantly in many other respects; see Klaus and Alvarez-­ Calderón [2017]). Here, the uppermost strata of a very dense Early/Middle Colonial Period cemetery are visible along with two intrusive late Historic nineteenth-century coffin burials. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

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3  Methods Paleodiet methods fall into two broad and complementary categories: indirect and direct. Indirect methods estimate or reconstruct resources that were available or utilized and how they were produced, procured, processed, and prepared. Direct methods estimate or characterize the types and relative proportions of resources that people actually consumed. Indirect methods include the archaeological study of subsistence tools, ceramic cooking and serving vessels, site features, physical remains such as food residues in soils (Carbone and Keel 1985; Ishige 2001; Knudson et al. 2004; Webb et al. 2004), and preserved plant and animal remains (Balasse and Tresset 2002; Bokyoni 1975; 1994; Fritz 1994; Gumerman IV 1994; 1994). While these techniques have made significant contributions to advancing what is known of past resource bases and subsistence, reconstructions of resource availability and use cannot be used alone to confidently predict the degree or frequency of resource consumption among the individual members of archaeological groups (Parmalee 1985; Styles 1994). This is an important distinction for ­interpreting frequencies of pathological conditions and other signs of chronic nutritional stress in skeletal samples (below), because the availability or preparation of particular foods is no guarantee that everyone in a given group actually ate them. Direct methods of reconstructing diet include those that indicate food consumption, either via traces left on teeth or metabolic signatures in hard and soft tissues. These methods include studies of occlusal macro- and microwear on tooth enamel, which can identify broad categories of foods based on the pits and scratches that they leave behind and preparation techniques based on damage from abrasive particles such as those from grinding stones. They also include microscopic analysis of embedded food particles in enamel, calculus, and coprolites (paleofeces), which provide clues as to agropastoral practices (Fry 1985; Holden 1991; Panagiotakopulu 1999), processing techniques and cuisines (Faulkner 1991; Horrocks et  al. 2004; Rhode 2003), and nutritional status. Direct methods also include geochemical analyses such as trace element analysis (Ezzo 1994; reviewed in Pate 1994; Sillen et al. 1989), which can distinguish meat-heavy versus plant-based diets and between ­different plant types (Burton and Wright 1995; Burton 1996; János et  al. 2011; Safont et al. 1998), and stable isotope analysis. Somewhere in between direct and indirect methods is the study of ancient oral health. Diet directly contributes to human oral biology and to the patterning of a suite of independent but related pathological conditions of the dentition. However, a range of complex behavioral, biological, and ecological phenomena can mediate or otherwise shape oral health. The human remains from the Lambayeque Biohistory Project sites are associated with ceremonial rather than household contexts, primarily huacas and chapel ­cemeteries. However, recovering household contexts in Lambayeque is rare. It has never been a focus of archaeology in the region, and, for those household contexts excavated in Colonial Eten, the spaces were cleaned out as the settlement was moved, brick-by-brick, in the mid-1700s. Consequently, we do not have the datasets common to household archaeology—ceramic residues, botanical remains from

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floors, faunal assemblages—that permit a “view from the kitchen” (Cutright 2014:65). However, our combined analysis of oral pathological conditions and stable light isotopes represents the largest dataset of its kind in South America: no other study has examined temporal trends in diet and foodways in the Central Andes that includes extensive coverage of the Spanish Colonial Periods and an abundance of direct methods. Using our review of archaeological and bioarchaeological research as a critical backdrop, we delve into the oral health and diet composition of hundreds of individuals, reconstructing patterns of consumption and diet-related stress that give us insights into what people were eating and how it affected their oral health, across periods of in situ cultural development and the duration of Spanish domination.

3.1  Oral Paleopathology: Inferring Diet-Related Stress As Goodman (1994: 165) so importantly defines, diet is literally what goes in one’s mouth and into the digestive tract to be broken down and transported to points beyond. Nutrition is defined as the state resulting from the balance between the supplies of nutrients that are contained within the diet. Diet-related stress can be characterized by patterning of dental caries, antemortem tooth loss, alveolar abscesses, and calculus. Dental Caries  This infectious disease process characterized by focal demineralization of dental enamel (most often in the complex occlusal grooves of molars) is caused by endogenous acidogenic bacteria that ferment dietary carbohydrates. The human oral microbiome is populated by some 40 different species of endogenous Streptococcus in the human oral cavity, dominated mostly by Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sobrinus (Coykendall 1989). Many of them are commensal, while others are pathogenic. At least three major factors are involved in cariogenesis: exposure of tooth surfaces to the oral environment, the presence of aggregates of complex indigenous oral bacterial flora, and dietary composition (Larsen 2015; Temple 2015). Hillson (1996) notes dental caries can be alternatively progressive— sometimes active, sometimes not, as lesions can re-mineralize owing to calcium ions suspended in salvia. Modifying factors may include oral pH, speed of food consumption, salivary proteins, antibacterial compounds in foodstuffs, hormonal composition, salivary flow, food clearance times, and altered bacterial gene expression (Arnes 1999; Forng et  al. 2000; Griffin 2014; Lukacs 2011; Lukacs and Thompson 2008; Temple 2015). Put another way, dental caries results from long-term cumulative changes in the pH and microenvironments in and around plaque deposits on tooth surfaces. These changes are in turn linked to the proportion of dietary carbohydrates, salivary pH, and the complex microbiome ecology present in oral plaque (Hillson 2008). Salivary enzymes break down constituent sugar polymers, which rapidly diffuse into the plaque matrix and are fermented mostly by Streptococcus spp. and Lactobacillus

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spp. A carious lesion begins as a small microscopic focus of demineralized crown enamel and can progress to the point of destroying an entire tooth crown (Fig. 12). Further, dental caries have been demonstrated to influence the manifestations of cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, and respiratory infections (Widmer 2010; Ylöstalo et al. 2006; Meurman et al. 2004; Han and Wang 2013). Beyond that, a long history of research in anthropology and human biology demonstrates that the more complex carbohydrates present in a diet, the greater the rate of oral flora metabolism and excretion of organic acids that progressively dissolve the mineral matrix (see reviews in Larsen 2015; Temple 2015). Dental caries were observed in a subsample of 2230 pre-Hispanic teeth from Huaca Ventarrón, El Arenal, Collud, Zarpan, and Huaca de los Sacrificios, while 4099 postcontact teeth were scored from Mórrope and Eten. Lesion location, size, and severity were recorded using protocols from and based upon Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994). Because some carious lesions may be obscured by dental wear, manifest microscopically, or may only be observable only via radiography (Hillson 2000), these observations represent a minimum estimate of prevalence. Rates of dental caries were defined as the number of carious teeth divided by the number of observable teeth.

Fig. 12  Representative examples of dental caries and antemortem tooth loss (AMTL), in the mandibular dentition recovered from a disturbed (looted) funerary context, Huaca Collud, NE Sector, Central Corridor, Ventarrón Archaeological Complex. The presence, distribution, and variation of dental caries are most directly linked to the extent of starchy cultigens in one’s diet, and while AMTL is more multifactorial, the condition is most consistently linked to the progression of advanced dental caries that forces the exfoliation of a tooth. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

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Antemortem Tooth Loss (AMTL)  Loss of teeth before death can stem from multiple causes and pathways. These include (1) advanced dental caries or abscesses that penetrate the pulp chamber and force the exfoliation of the infected tooth, (2) advanced dental wear that similarly compromises the integrity of the pulp chamber, (3) nutritional/metabolic deficiencies, (4) culturally induced ablation, and (5) trauma (Ortner 2003; Lukacs 2008). Following the evulsion of a tooth, alveolar bone resorbs and remodels the vacant socket (also see Fig. 12). AMTL was scored by tooth location and degree of alveolar resorption. Antemortem tooth loss rates were calculated from the number of discernible antemortem losses out of the total number of observable tooth loci (or observable anatomical tooth socket positions). A total of 2644 pre-Hispanic and 4759 postcontact tooth loci were scored for AMTL. Periapical Inflammation (Abscesses)  Following infection and necrosis of the pulp, inflammation passes into the root canal as bacteria and their toxic byproducts materialize out of the periapical foramen to produce chronic alveolar inflammation (Hillson 1996) (Fig. 13). Some 450 bacterial species have been identified in r­ esultant endodontic infections (Siqueira and Rôças 2009). These include multiple varieties of microaerophilic streptococci, anaerobic streptococci, and both gram-positive and gram-negative anaerobic rods (Griffin 2014). Infection of the root canal requires necrosis or other penetration of the dental pulp tissue (e.g., dental caries, trauma, or dental procedure) (Siqueira and Rôças 2009).

Fig. 13  An alveolar abscess present in the maxilla of an individual whose looted burial was found at Huaca Collud, NE Sector, Central Corridor, Ventarrón Archaeological Complex. Most abscesses are related to large, destructive dental caries, such as the one affecting this individual’s first left maxillary molar. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

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Responses to the infectious locus around the apex of a tooth involve an inflammatory immune response involving cytokines, chemokines, and cell signaling factors that upregulate local osteoclast activity via the RANK/RANKL/ OPG signaling system. Alveolar abscesses usually start out as small periapical granulomas (usually ca. 3 mm in size) that then begin to grow (Dias and Tayles 1997). Acute periapical abscesses develop from the persistent, polymicrobial infection of granulomas leading to the accumulation of pus, which most commonly drains through a fistula on the buccal side of the alveolus. Secondary effects can include tooth exfoliation, dissemination of bacteria to the sinuses, and cellulitis (Siqueira and Rôças 2009; Griffin 2014). Here, the presence, absence, location, and size of periapical inflammatory responses were recorded in the maxillary and mandibular alveolar bone of 2644 pre-Hispanic and 4759 postcontact tooth loci. Calculus  Dental calculus results from saliva-driven mineralization of living dental plaque biofilms. The complex biochemistry of calculus and the factors that initiate its formation are not fully understood. However, its formation is likely tethered to increased plaque accumulation due to carbohydrate consumption and poor oral hygiene (Hillson 1996: p 259). Mediating factors can include variations in salivary flow rates, mineral content of food and imbibed water, and the mechanical effects of chewing. The formation of calculus begins typically with Streptococcus mutans metabolizing salivary sugars that form the biofilm on teeth. As this occurs, local ammonia concentrations increase, pH rises, and calcium phosphate precipitation ensues. The inorganic calcium phosphate salts in saliva can rapidly replace bacteria such that these microorganisms, one by one, become dead, calcified structures (Hillson 2005) (Fig. 14). The spaces between individual bacteria can fill with food particles, plant microfossils, epithelial cells, and the chemistry of non-dietary substances interacting with the oral cavity (Radini et al. 2017). This makes dental calculus a veritable storehouse of dietary, genomic, and microbiomic information. Complete calcification of a layer of biofilm can take as little as 2 weeks, and as new bacteria settle atop the newly calcified matrix, a new active biofilm is produced. The process repeats producing a fine incrementally layered structure of dental calculus. Supragingival calculus deposits were recorded using Brothwell’s (1981) three-stage scoring system in a subsample of 2230 pre-Hispanic and 4099 observable postcontact teeth. Calculus rates were defined as the number of affected teeth divided by the total number of observable teeth. Statistical Procedures  The risk of oral disease is neither equal across the dentition nor across the life span. Anterior teeth (incisors and canines) have virtually no occlusal morphology in contrast to the complex crenulations, grooves, furrows, and valleys present on premolars and molars. These features provide ideal locations to trap food particles and initiate a much higher rate of dental caries and antemortem tooth loss. The increased surface areas of multirooted posterior teeth bring an increased risk of periodontitis. Calculus formation is most common on the lingual surfaces of incisors and canines and the buccal aspects of maxillary molars as these

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Fig. 14  Formations of dental calculus can be seen on the anterior mandibular dentition of Zarpán Burial 4. While the biochemistry of calculus formation is very intricate, the mineralization of living dental biofilm into plaque deposits is related to dietary composition and other factors involving oral health and hygiene. (Photo by Haagen Klaus)

are closest to the openings of the salivary ducts where the concentration of calcium ions and salts is the highest in the mouth. Also, differing overall average age at death between samples can also make the straightforward comparison of frequency data misleading (Klaus 2014). Cumulative exposure to risk of oral disease increases with age. In other words, the older you are, the more likely you are to have developed these pathological conditions. Comparing crude prevalence (frequencies or percentages) of oral pathological conditions between samples of differing underlying age structures produces observations that are more a function of age and not authentic disease patterning. The first step was to estimate the age of each individual using the summary age statistic for the pre- and postcontact Lambayeque skeletal samples (Lovejoy et al. 1985; also see Klaus 2008). This was done using principal component analysis based on an internally consistent seriation of tooth crown formation and eruption sequences with ages from Moorees et al. (1962) for subadults. For adults, summary ages were based on a principal component analysis of internally consistent seriation of pubic symphysis, auricular surface, cranial suture closure, and dental wear patterns (Brooks and Suchey 1992; Lovejoy et al. 1985). Statistical significance of dental caries and AMTL prevalence was determined using a G-test, or a maximum-likelihood chi-square, which is a measure of goodness-­ of-­fit. The G-statistic is ideal for small subsamples (less than 50 individuals) and quite robust with larger ones. When observed (O) minus expected (E) values are greater than expected values, a Χ2-test can become artificially inflated resulting in type I error. The G-test avoids this by using the expected value frequency as the

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denominator. After taking the natural log of this ratio, each log is multiplied by O, and the products summed and multiplied by 2 such that G = 2Σ (O ln [O/E]) (Sokal and Rohlf 1995). Dental caries, AMTL, abscesses, and calculus prevalence rates were calculated separately for anterior teeth and posterior teeth across three standardized age classes: prereproductive (Age Class 1, 0–14.9  years of age), reproductive (Age Class 2, 15.0–35.9 years of age), and Age Class 3 post-reproductive (45 years old plus). This approach to age class structuring maximizes subsample sizes and statistical power, minimizes age estimation errors, and considers the role of key life history phases as a contributing factor to oral health (e.g., Temple 2015). Then, a “Summary G-test value” was calculated which describes and assesses the significance of the overall prevalence difference for each comparison. The Summary G was calculated from the sums of affected/observed for each of the three age classes in any given comparison for which a G-test was then calculated.

3.2  S  table Isotope Analysis: Reconstructing Diet (and Maybe Cuisines) Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations  Stable isotope analysis constitutes an important and now-common area of bioarchaeological research, straddling the categories of direct and indirect evidence. Characterizing stable isotope ratios in archaeological human tissues is considered a direct method for inferring what individuals actually consumed from the resources available to them, while characterizing the same ratios in plant and animal tissues, ceramic food residues, and soils can provide valuable indirect evidence of the types of foods available and the manner in which they were processed and combined. By applying the same methods to human remains and preserved archaeological material culture and features, bioarchaeologists can reconstruct detailed and nuanced profiles of individual and communal diets and gain unique insights into subsistence ecologies and foodways. Stable isotope analysis was first introduced to archaeology and bioarchaeology in the late 1970s and early 1980s (DeNiro and Epstein 1978, DeNiro and Schoeninger 1983) and in the ensuing decades has become ubiquitous in the field as a way to reconstruct aspects of diet and residential origin in archaeological human and faunal remains. The application of stable isotope analysis from ecology and geosciences to archaeology and bioarchaeology has been reviewed in detail (reviewed in Ambrose 1993; Katzenberg and Harrison 1997; Price and Burton 2010; Schwarcz and Schoeninger 1991; Turner and Livengood 2017, to name a few). The three most commonly analyzed stable (nonradioactive) isotope ratios in anthropology are 13C/12C, 15N/14N, and 18O/16O. Because the differences in atomic weights between the paired isotopes are extremely small, the values are expressed per mil (‰) relative to an established geological or environmental standard using delta (δ) notation. All three of these elements cycle through terrestrial and aquatic

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food webs with predictable changes in values as they are digested, respired, excreted, and otherwise metabolized, known as fractionation. The predictability of fractionation effects lies in the different atomic weights of the isotopes; the lighter isotope enters into physical and chemical reactions more easily, leaving more of the heavy isotope behind in a stepwise fashion at every position in a food web. Carbon isotope ratios (δ13C, relative to the Pee Dee Belemnite geological standard or v.PDB) occur throughout all plant and animal tissues. Carbon isotope values in the tissues of plants and the animals that consume them, and who are themselves consumed by other animals, vary predictably depending on the photosynthetic cycle of the plants. Terrestrial food webs are dominated by plants with either C3 or C4 photosynthetic pathways; the former are much more common and produce tissue δ13C values between −20 and −37‰, while the latter discriminate to a greater degree against 13C and produce tissue δ13C values between −12 and −15‰ (Kohn 2010; von Caemmerer et  al. 2014). Plants with crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) photosynthetic pathways, such as succulents, fix CO2 molecules with less discrimination of 13C when water stressed, and more discrimination of 13C when not, producing δ13C values that vary between C3 and C4 ranges, depending on local conditions (Szarek and Troughton 1976). This makes CAM plants adaptable to arid environments such as on the north coast of Peru, though humans do not commonly consume them. In animals, the carbonate (CaCO3) fraction of bone and tooth hydroxyapatite (Ca10(CO4)6(OH)2) metabolizes carbon from blood bicarbonates (HCO3-) that equilibrate with the CO2 produced during cellular respiration (Kreuger and Sullivan 1984, Tieszen and Fagre 1993). This means that δ13C values in bone and enamel carbonate represent averages of the values metabolized for energy from all sources of carbon (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) in consumed foods, including terrestrial and marine animal products and plants with C3 versus C4 photosynthetic pathways. In bone proteins, the majority of which is collagen, δ13C values appear disproportionately drawn from plant- and animal-based dietary proteins (Ambrose and Norr 1993). Controlled feeding studies suggest that the diet-tissue fractionation of δ13Ccollagen is approximately +5‰ (O’Connell et al. 2001), while the diet-tissue fractionation of δ13Ccarbonate in humans is approximately +11–12‰ (Prowse et al. 2005). Comparing organic (collagen, keratin) and inorganic (carbonate, phosphate) δ13C values characterized in the same individual can provide some insights into the different sources of energy and protein in the diet. Traditionally, this was accomplished using carbonate-collagen spacing, or Δ13Cap-col, to estimate the type and proportion of protein in the overall diet (Ambrose 1993; Ambrose and Norr 1993). While this spacing remains useful for distinguishing herbivores from carnivores, recent research suggests that in  vivo metabolic routing of dietary components to different bodily tissues in humans is more complex. Subsequently, regression formulae and multivariate models have been proposed to accurately estimate different dietary components in archaeological samples (Froehle et  al. 2012; Kellner and Schoeninger 2007).

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Estimating the proportions of dietary protein sources can be complicated, however, by several confounding factors. For instance, if an individual’s diet was low in protein overall, collagen and keratin δ13C values will likely include a significant contribution of carbon found in lipids and carbohydrates (Schwarcz 2000), creating significant overlap with carbonate or phosphate δ13C ratios. One way to account for this is to examine carbon isotope ratios in conjunction with skeletal or dental indicators of macronutrient malnutrition such as growth stunting. Another confounder is the fact that different protein sources can have similar or even identical δ13C ratios. In the Andes, for example, several types of marine fish, maize, and kiwicha (amaranth) have identical δ13C ratios despite the fact that marine fish and kiwicha are significantly higher in protein overall than maize (Cadwallader et al. 2012; Turner et al. 2010), and all three have distinct amino acid profiles. This means that individuals with comparable tissue δ13C values may have in fact consumed nutritionally different diets. The fact that very different forms of protein can produce similar δ13C values underscores the importance of combining carbon and nitrogen isotope values in reconstructing diet. Nitrogen isotope ratios (δ15N, relative to atmospheric values or v.AIR) in bone collagen are also drawn from dietary proteins (animal, vegetable, leguminous, fungal, terrestrial, freshwater, marine) but are better able to distinguish between them (DeNiro and Schoeninger 1983). Nitrogen isotopes cycle through food webs with predictable fractionation at each trophic level (Ambrose et al. 1997; Lee-Thorp et al. 1989). Similar to δ13C, the base values of δ15N in food webs depend on the types of plants consumed. Legumes such as beans and peanuts fix nitrogen directly from the atmosphere via symbiotic bacteria living in their roots and exhibit δ15N values close to 0‰ (DeNiro 1987). Marine plants such as seaweeds and phytoplankton fix nitrogen from dissolved nitrates and ammonium in seawater and tend to have higher δ15N values than terrestrial plants that uptake nitrogen from nitrates and nitrites in surrounding soils (Schoeninger and DeNiro 1984). Animal δ15N ratios reflect those from the protein sources in their diets and their positions within food webs, as δ15N ratios exhibit a stepwise fractionation of approximately +3‰ with each step or trophic level (Ambrose et al. 1997; Ambrose and Norr 1993; Lee-Thorp et al. 1989). Tissue δ15N in animals thus represent the types of plants or plant-consuming animals that they consume, as well as the overall concentration of nitrogen in the diet (O’Connell and Hedges 1999). Nitrogen isotope values can increase in arid food webs as plant and animal metabolic processes shift to better conserve water (Ambrose 1991) and in cases of starvation or wasting diseases as the body metabolizes its own lean tissues (Fuller et al. 2005; Katzenberg and Lovell 1999). Values can also decrease in pregnancy, resulting from differential routing of nitrogen throughout the body (Fuller et al. 2004). For these reasons, it is important to carefully consider not only the environmental context in which the individuals of interest lived but also osteological indicators of malnutrition or severe, chronic infection (Goodman 2017). An additional isotope ratio with potential utility for studying foodways is oxygen (δ18O, relative to standard mean ocean water, or v.SMOW) in bone and tooth enamel carbonate. Tissue δ18O values reflect the isotopic composition of an individual’s

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body water (δ18O) at normal core temperature (37 °C). The body water δ18O of obligate drinkers is influenced by the oxygen isotopic composition of imbibed water, both meteoric (such as collected rainwater) and geologic (such as from wells or springs), with predictable fractionation (Longinelli 1984; Luz et al. 1984). The isotopic composition of water is in turn linked to the nature and degree of evaporative pressures acting on water sources. Evaporative pressures acting on meteoric water are shaped by latitude, altitude, aridity, seasonal temperature change, and fluctuating rainfall in a given region, through the variable loss of 16O during evaporation and the progressive loss of 18O during precipitation as air masses move inland and up elevation (Dansgaard 1964; Gat 1996; White et al. 1998). The same environmental pressures affect geologic water, though there may be some buffering depending on the source and routes of these waters. Oxygen isotope ratios are commonly studied as a proxy of regional climate and thereby individual mobility between isotopically distinct regions (White et al. 2000; White et  al. 2002). However, in regions with complex and variable climates and hydrological systems, such as the Central Andes (Knudson 2009) and elsewhere (Scherer et al. 2015), δ18O is less reliable as a measure of paleomobility. This has not eliminated the utility of oxygen isotope analysis in the Central Andes. Indeed, Buzon et al. (2011) demonstrate that δ18O remain reliable indicators of residential mobility in the Nazca region; moreover, studies are increasingly including systematic analysis of the various water sources around the sites they study (Hewitt 2013) to more accurately assess bone and enamel δ18O values relative to local water. However, a growing number of studies are using δ18O to reconstruct variation in water source consumption related to brewing (Gagnon et al. 2015), cooking (Turner et  al. 2018), and other cultural practices that create “anthropic” water discussed below. Since the late 1970s, stable isotope analysis of archaeological human remains has revolutionized the study of diet, subsistence, and nutrition through time (reviewed in Katzenberg and Harrison 1997; Price and Burton 2010; Schoeninger 2014; Schwarcz and Schoeninger 1991). There are now thousands of dietary stable isotope studies of skeletal assemblages and archaeological contexts from across the globe, spanning the entirety of human history. In the Andes, stable isotope studies have investigated change or consistency in subsistence related to aspects of cultural complexity, state formation, and imperial influence. These include studies of agricultural production and economic specialization (Finucane et al. 2006; Marsteller et al. 2017; Sandness 1992), animal husbandry (Szpak et al. 2016; Tomczyk et al. 2019), and textile production (Szpak et al. 2015, 2018). Studies explore diet disparities related to status and/or gender (Hastorf 1996; Somerville et al. 2015; TorresRouf et  al. 2015; Turner et  al. 2010; Ubelaker et  al. 1995), as well as varying relationships between imperial cores and subject polities during the millennium prior to European contact (Knudson et al. 2012; Knudson et al. 2015; Pestle et al. 2016; Slovak 2007; Toyne et al. 2017; Tung and Knudson 2018; Tung et al. 2015; Turner et al. 2018). While the majority of stable isotope studies are concentrated in the Central Andes, an increasing number are broadening our perspectives with stud-

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ies from southern (Alfonso-Durruty et al. 2017; Gheggi and William 2013; Ugan et al. 2012) and northern (Delgado 2018) Andean regions. Isotopic Complexities: Menus and Paleocuisines  A common aspect of isotopic paleodiet studies is the characterization of stable isotope ratios in archaeological and/or modern plants and animals that were part of the available “menu” of the people under study. Whether presented as secondary or complementary datasets (Finucane et  al. 2006; Turner et  al. 2010) or a focus of a systematic survey (Cadwallader et al. 2012; Szpak et al. 2013; Tieszen and Chapman 1993), these data provide critical baseline references for interpreting isotopic values in human tissues. Isotope ratios allow researchers to estimate the types of foods that a given individual or group of people consumed but only rarely can identify a specific resource per se. A bone collagen δ13C value of −8.0‰ and corresponding δ15N of 16.0‰ certainly indicates significant consumption of 15N-enriched C4 resources, for example, but a working knowledge of the food resources available to said individuals is critical to estimating the likelihood that those isotope values were ultimately drawn from large oceanic fish, kiwicha (amaranth), or other resources. Knowing what was local, traded or otherwise exchanged, and imported from far-flung regions in particular regions over time is therefore essential to investigating food culture beyond a superficial level. Several recent studies have dramatically expanded the reference dataset for the coastal Central Andes, particularly surveys of north coastal Peruvian plants and both local camelid herds and caravans by Szpak et al. (2013, 2014, 2016). These studies and their interpretive significance are discussed further in the chapter “Lambayeque Paleodiet and Nutrition: A Diachronic Analysis”. In addition to building sufficient isotopic reference data for interpreting diets and food cultures in human groups, a number of studies have attempted to investigate aspects of food processing and cooking. There appear to be minimal differences in the carbon isotopic values of foods based on their preparation, often within the range of mass spectrometer analytical error (Marino and Deniro 1987). Turner et al. (2010) found no differences exceeding analytical error in either δ13C or δ15N between raw samples of maize, beans, grains, and tubers and those that were boiled until soft or roasted (≤200  °C) until evidence of Maillard reaction (browning of natural sugars). Fraser et al. (2013) similarly found negligible changes in δ13C of a sample of Eurasian grains and pulses associated with charring at 230 °C over increments up to 24 hours, though they did find a systematic increase in δ15N values by about ‰. The authors attribute this to loss of nitrogen-containing volatiles, which would discriminate in favor of 14N, during the conversion of amino acids to other nitrogenous compounds in Maillard reactions. Experimental studies have demonstrated inherent variation of almost 1‰ in δ13C and almost 2‰ in δ15N between ­samples of food plants harvested from the same agricultural plots (Fraser et  al. 2011). This is encouraging, as it allows researchers to use isotope data to infer consumption of foods whether the individual resource is eaten raw or cooked. However, recent studies of ceramic residues suggest that inferring food components from isotope data in combinations such as stews or soups may be more complicated.

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Hastorf and Deniro (1985) first pioneered the use of stable isotope analysis to determine what plants were present in charred archaeological food remains, successfully identifying meal ingredients in the Upper Mantaro Valley of Peru and representing the first use of isotope analysis to reconstruct paleocuisines. Sherriff et al. (1995) combined spectroscopic and stable isotope analyses of charred residues on archaeological clay pots and replica pots used in experimental cooking simulations, to identify fish and fat as the primary ingredients. Building on this earlier approach, Morton and Schwarcz (2004) combined residue analysis and isotope analysis of cookpots from Ontario ca. 450 CE, comparing isotope values from food residues to those in human bone collagen. Based on their analyses of the combined results, the authors argue that freshwater fish and game remained central to the diets of indigenous communities in Ontario throughout the shift to maize agriculture, as did a significant inclusion of C3 plants. Moreover, using experimental cooking in replica pots, the authors were able to reconstruct both ingredients and preparation techniques in what were most likely thick soups or mashed stews of fish, meat, and C3 plants, but little to no maize. While Morton and Schwarcz (2004) conclude from this result that maize must have been consumed in different forms, such as ground and baked into bread or straight from the cob, Hart et  al. (2007) argue against this interpretation. Using experimental cooking and stable isotope analysis of created residues from combinations of grains and deer meat, Hart et al. (2007, 2009) argue that underrepresentation of maize in Morton and Schwarcz’s (2004) results likely stems from the differential contribution of carbon overall from maize relative to chenopods and meat. This means that the contribution of carbon from a given ingredient is dependent on the carbon content of the ingredient, not its proportion in a meal. It also means that ingredients that release more carbon during cooking because it breaks down more quickly than others will be overrepresented in ceramic residues. Beyond the immediate applications to inferring proportions of maize in paleocuisines, the authors contend that the differential contribution of carbon from different foodstuffs and their varying rates of breakdown during cooking—particularly if dried versus fresh—makes accurately interpreting ingredients using isotope data from ceramic residues a largely unfeasible enterprise, particularly regarding maize. However, Dunne et  al. (2019) recently examined compound-specific δ13C of fatty acids extracted and characterized via gas chromatography from ceramic cookpot sherds in Medieval England. In a nuanced analysis, the authors reconstruct the types of animal tissues and leafy vegetable processing techniques, note the absence of aquatic biomarkers, and suggest food resources such as pork that are more likely to be underrepresented in ceramic residues. One implication of these studies is that reconstructing aspects of cuisine using isotope analysis of food residues is inherently inaccurate and therefore must be approached with an abundance of not only caution but independent lines of evidence such as starch grains, phytoliths, and macrobotanical data. Another implication is that isotope values in the preserved tissues of archaeological human remains could, in some contexts, reflect cooking techniques in addition to the foods actually consumed. Ingredients cooked into a soup or stew would presumably all be served

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and eaten together, regardless of what leaves a residue and what does not. However, if those ingredients are strained or filtered out of the solution in which they were cooked, then ingredients that break down quickly would be underrepresented in the final product. Similarly, fatty meats that are spit-roasted or otherwise cooked such that drippings are not collected will have a different isotopic composition than in their raw form due to loss of lipids. This possibility underscores the importance of situating isotopic data within larger schemas of local ecology, available food resources, and any evidence from household and public contexts as to how those resources might have been processed and prepared for consumption. If the goal of a study is to differentiate between isotopically distinct food sources, then issues of preparation will be unlikely to impact the accuracy of diet estimations. If attempting to parse isotopically similar or overlapping foods, however, some understanding of common or typical preparation techniques could significantly affect the way isotopic values are read and interpreted. The same logic applies to oxygen isotope values. While δ18O has been traditionally used to infer residential mobility between ecologically distinct regions, discussed above, its applicability to paleomobility reconstructions in the Andes is more equivocal than reconstructions elsewhere in the world. Knudson (2009) compared observed isotope values to expected ranges based on local geologic and climatic contexts using combined analyses of δ18O and 87Sr/86Sr in enamel and bone from archaeological human remains recovered from sites in Peru, Chile, and Bolivia. Strontium isotope results in the human samples from these various sites identified several nonlocal individuals, but δ18O results were highly variable even after excluding these nonlocal outliers and accounting for the effects of breastfeeding (discussed in Chapter 7) in elevating values in tooth enamel. Knudson’s (2009) findings demonstrate intrasite δ18O variation that exceeds inter-site variation in some, including among sites from distinct ecozones, thereby interrogating the premise that tissue δ18O in Andean archaeological remains can be used to eco-locate individuals and track their mobility in all regions. Subsequently, researchers have started to suspect that some δ18O variation in the Andes also stems from anthropogenic factors. These factors include storage in open-air cisterns, brewing into chicha, which often involves boiling and open-container fermentation (Gagnon et al. 2015), and cooking into soups and stews (Bélisle 2015). Ethnohistoric analyses (Coe 1994) remark at the recorded propensity of indigenous Peruvians to drink chicha, either sweet or alcoholic, almost exclusively, and a reluctance to drink plain water as a result, while Gerdau-Radonić et al. (2015) point to the significant contribution of anthropic drinks to bone δ18O based on research at Tablada de Lurín in Lima (200 BCE–200 CE). Stable Isotope Analysis of Lambayeque Skeletal Samples  The sample preparation methods for stable light isotope analysis utilized here have been described in detail elsewhere (Turner et al. 2018) and are modified from protocols developed by Stafford (1994), Liden et al. (1995), and Ambrose (1993). Individuals were selected based on the availability of rib bone and/or tooth enamel, avoiding bone or enamel that appeared friable or otherwise poorly preserved, and preferably collecting tis-

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sues from ribs or teeth that were already broken in order to minimize further destruction of the remains. Bone and tooth samples were exported to the United States from Peru in accordance with the regulations of the Ministry of Culture and with all appropriate approvals and permits. Any excess bone or dental tissue not consumed by sample preparation or mass spectrometry is archived in the Bioarchaeology Laboratory at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. Bone samples were abraded to remove surface contaminants and cleaned ultrasonically and then divided for carbonate and collagen preparation procedures. Enamel samples were abraded clean to remove surface contaminants. For collagen preparation, bone samples were crushed in an agate mortar and lipids removed using a 10:5:1 solution of methanol, chloroform, and double-distilled water in 15 ml borosilicate tubes with PTFE-lined caps. Samples were then air-dried and demineralized in 0.5 M HCl at 4 °C until translucent, with periodic replacement of HCl. Samples were then rinsed to neutral pH and treated with a 0.2% KOH solution for 48–72 hours, depending on sample integrity, to remove humic contaminants, rinsed to neutral pH, and then gelatinized in a 0.05 M HCl solution at 95 °C for approximately 8 hours. Gelatinized samples were filtered through 0.45 μm millipore syringe tips into 5 ml borosilicate tubes and dried at low temperature in an evaporating oven. For carbonate preparation, bone and enamel samples were crushed to a fine powder using an agate mortar and pestle and then were soaked for 24–72 hours in a 2% NaOCl (bleach)/18ΩH2O solution until degassing in the solution ceased, signifying that most organic material was removed. The samples were then centrifuged, rinsed to neutral with 18ΩH2O, and soaked for 2–4 hours in a 0.2% acetic acid solution at 4  °C to remove any exogenous carbonates and other diagenetic contaminants (Garvie-Lok et  al. 2004). Isolated carbonate samples were then centrifuged and rinsed to neutral pH with 18ΩH2O and freeze-dried under vacuum. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope compositions of isolated bone collagen were characterized on a Thermo Electron DELTA V Advantage isotope ratio mass spectrometer coupled with a ConFlo II interface linked to a Carlo Erba NA 1500 CNHS Elemental Analyzer. Carbon and oxygen stable isotope compositions of isolated bone and enamel carbonate were characterized in a Finnigan-MAT 252 isotope ratio mass spectrometer coupled with a Kiel III carbonate preparation device. All mass spectrometry was carried out by Dr. Jason Curtis at the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Mass spectrometer analytical precision was determined using NBS standards for carbonate samples, which ranged 0.02–0.03‰ for δ13C and 0.05–0.06‰ for δ18O; analytical precision was determined using USGS40 standards for collagen samples, which ranged 0.05–0.23‰ for δ15N and 0.07–0.14‰ for δ13C. Isotope ratios are expressed per mil (‰) relative to established standards: the Pee Dee Belemnite geological standard (PDB) for δ13C, atmospheric nitrogen (AIR) for δ15N, and standard mean ocean water (SMOW) for δ18O.

Results: Paleopathological and Stable Isotope Findings

You are what you eat...plus a few permil. (Ellam 2016:17)

This chapter presents the results of a multi-year skeletal paleopathological and isotopic study of human remains from the Lambayeque Biohistory Project, a collaborative effort spanning some 15 years. This book represents the first cohesive reporting of the isotopic data. While subsets of these data described herein have been published previously (Turner et  al. 2013) or presented at annual meetings (Turner and Klaus 2015), this is the first reporting of the entire isotopic dataset from the Lambayeque Biohistory Project. Carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope values were characterized in bone carbonate, enamel carbonate, bone collagen, and/or hair keratin among 324 individuals from four sites: Ventarrón (including the Huaca Zarpán, Huaca Collud, and Arenal sectors), Chotuna (Huaca de Los Sacrificios), San Pedro de Mórrope, and Eten (including the cemeteries at La Capilla de Niño Serrañito [CNS] and La Capilla de Santa María de Magdalena de Eten [CSMME]). The multi-isotope perspectives are joined with baseline oral paleopathology data (dental caries, AMTL, calculus, and abscesses) as parallel, complementary, and comparative source of information to build a more complete and holistic reconstruction of paleodiet. Together, these data span some three millennia, making ours one of the most comprehensive isotopic datasets for the ancient Andes, and one that speaks directly to the significance and nuanced details of the postcontact transition. This is also by far the largest and broadest isotopic dataset for the Peruvian north coast, but it is not the only one. Therefore, a parallel aim of this chapter is to compare the data from Lambayeque to mean values from samples from other sites in the north coast region to build an even bigger picture. Comparative skeletal isotope data are drawn from Ancón (Slovak and Paytan 2011), the Casma valley site of El Purgatorio (Vogel et al. 2016), Pacatnamú (Verano and DeNiro 1993, White et al. 2009), multiple sites in the Virú valley (Ericson et al. 1989), and the Zaña valley site of Carrizales (Turner

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B. L. Turner, H. D. Klaus, Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways on the North Coast of Peru, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42614-9_7

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et al. 2017), along with additional studies (Toyne et al. 2014; White et al. 2009) that enrich our interpretations in the next chapter. We must acknowledge some key limiting factors to this analysis at the outset of this chapter, however. First and foremost, all of the individuals in this study were disconnected in death from their lived communities. While the two cemeteries at Eten are associated with Spanish colonial chapels representing mostly Eten’s nucleated, resettled indigenous Muchik populace, population movement, individual mobility, and instability during that era likely means that Eten drew in at least some individuals from multiple surrounding communities. The same is likely true of the cemetery at San Pedro de Mórrope, while the individuals recovered from Chotuna-­ Chornancap were ritually sacrificed atop the Huaca de Los Sacrificios (Turner et al. 2013). The interments from the sectors at Ventarrón are similarly—archaeologically speaking—removed to some degree from their constituent communities as the Huacas there became a sacred burial ground for those living around the site. Therefore, the isotopic and osteological data presented in the next two chapters from the Lambayeque Biohistory Project are linked indirectly with the contextual knowledge we described in earlier chapters. Further, the oral health data presented here represent the observations from the sites from which we have stable isotope data. These are a subset of the yet larger oral health dataset developed by the Lambayeque Biohistory Project that currently contains data from another 1000 mostly Late pre-Hispanic individuals. Another limitation in this analysis is the unbalanced sample sizes across time periods. As is the nature of archaeological samples, some eras are represented by a scarce few individuals, while other periods boast much larger numbers. This is especially the case for isotopic values in bone carbonate and collagen, but this is not unique to Lambayeque for reasons detailed below. We do not advance specific hypotheses related to diet changes related to increasing social complexity, as noted in the chapter “Theorizing Food and Power in the Ancient Andes”, there is no archaeological evidence to support an unequivocal link between subsistence regimes and cultural regimes. Instead, our primary aim is to synthesize and compare this specific, combined paleopathological and isotope dataset—by far the largest of its kind for the north coast—with existing stable isotope datasets for the region. The next chapter begins the interpretation of observed trends in estimated food and water consumption in relation to archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence to reconstruct food production, exchange, and preparation. In the following chapter, we further analyze these data to better gauge the effects of different diets on overall nutrition and health. Several sites had burial phases spanning multiple periods, so we have organized these data for analysis and interpretation into three main pre-Hispanic groupings following Rowe’s (1961) Peruvian Referent Chronology: Early Horizon (1500  BCE–400  BCE), Early Intermediate Periods (400  BCE–550  CE), Middle Horizon Periods (500–900  CE), and the Late Intermediate/Late Horizon Periods (900–1532  CE). In Lambayeque, the Early Horizon Period encompasses the Cupisnique occupations, the Middle Horizon parallels the Late Moche period, and the Late Intermediate/Late Horizon Periods subsumes the Late pre-Hispanic Sicán,

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Chimú, and Chimú/Inka occupations. The postcontact or Colonial Period spans roughly 1536–1750 CE, and within that, we distinguished an Early/Middle Colonial Period (ca. 1536–1640 CE) and Middle/Late Colonial Period (ca. 1640–1750 CE) that correspond to major occupational and stratigraphic distinctions. These groupings serve several conceptual and practical analytic purposes. Particularly, given the comparative nature of this endeavor, we opted to use broad strokes based on similarities in subsistence rather than focus on particular cultural contexts. Also, sample sizes for both bone collagen preservation remain an issue in coastal skeletal remains and can be highly varied between all cultural phases. These comparative categories also maximize sample sizes to better generalize specific diet estimates. In collapsing specific time periods or cultural phases into broader categories, resultant interpretations of diet and subsistence are more reasonable.

1  Patterns of Oral Paleopathology Over 3000 Years G-tests were calculated for dental caries, antemortem tooth loss (AMTL), and calculus separately for the anterior dentition (incisors and canines) and posterior dentition (premolars and molars). Abscesses were compared across the entire dental arcade. Comparisons were structured across the Early Horizon (mostly Cupisnique-­affiliated burials), the Middle Horizon (Late Moche Era), and the Late Intermediate Period (mostly all Middle Sicán individuals). The Early Intermediate Period skeletal data are too few to conduct valid statistical tests. The same problem afflicts the Chimú and Inka subsamples. Multiple characterizations of oral paleopathology across the postcontact transition were based on a composite Late Intermediate/Late Horizon sample (combined Middle Sicán individuals and the Inka human remains from Huaca de los Sacrificios) that was first compared to an overall postcontact sample (combined data from Mórrope and Eten). To gain insight on temporal variation, late pre-Hispanic oral health data were compared with the Early/Middle Colonial Period assemblage (combined Mórrope and Eten) and then within the Early/Middle-­Middle/Late Colonial Period (again, combined Mórrope and Eten). Site-specific postcontact differences were evaluated in a final comparison of Mórrope versus Eten. Each comparison was assessed using a G-test across three standardized age classes and a summary G-test as described in the chapter “The Lambayeque Biohistory Project: Contexts and Analysis”. Pre-Hispanic oral paleopathology presents a number of distinctive patterns (Tables 1 and 2). First, oral health during the Formative era was generally excellent and free of widespread pathological conditions (Fig. 1). Indeed, while these individuals comprise the smallest samples in this work, a very consistent pattern can be seen. Crude prevalence frequencies of dental caries of the anterior and posterior dentitions range between 0.0% and 6.25% for individual age classes, and the highest average rate of antemortem tooth loss is just short of 5%. A greater number of teeth were affected by calculus with an average prevalence of 13.2% for anterior teeth and 11.9% for posterior teeth. Abscesses were nearly nonexistent.

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Table 1  G-test comparisons, oral pathological conditions, Formative versus Late Moche Periods

Age class Dental caries, anterior dentition 1 (0.14.9 yrs) 2 (15–44.9 yrs) 3 (45+) Summary G-value Dental caries, posterior dentition 1 (0.14.9 yrs) 2 (15–44.9 yrs) 3 (45+) Summary G-value Antemortem tooth loss, anterior dentition 1 (0.14.9 yrs) 2 (15–44.9 yrs) 3 (45+) Summary G-value Antemortem tooth loss, posterior dentition 1 (0.14.9 yrs) 2 (15–44.9 yrs) 3 (45+) Summary G-value Calculus, anterior dentition 1 (0.14.9 yrs) 2 (15–44.9 yrs) 3 (45+) Summary G-value Calculus, posterior dentition 1 (0.14.9 yrs) 2 (15–44.9 yrs) 3 (45+) Summary G-value

Ntotal/naffected Formative era 0/16 3/84 1/35 4/135 Formative era 0/36 6/108 3/48 9/192 Formative era

Crude prevalence (%)

0.00 3.57 2.56 2.96

0.0 5.56 6.25 4.69

Ntotal/naffected Late Moche Era 7/148 6/97 3/58 16/303 Late Moche Era 18/192 27/137 6/19 51/348 Late Moche Era

Crude prevalence (%)

G

p

4.73 6.19 5.17 5.28

1.41 0.60 0.28 1.14

0.24 0.44 0.60 0.29

9.37 19.71 31.58 5.81

5.93 8.85 4.92 11.59

0.01 0.003 0.03 0.0007

0/42 0/81 5/49 5/172 Formative era

0.00 0.00 10.20 2.91

0/231 1/79 13/86 14/396 Late Moche Era

0.00 1.27 15.12 3.54

– 1.40 0.52 0.14

– 0.24 0.47 0.71

0/48 2/139 11/75 13/262 Formative era 0/26 9/60 7/35 16/121 Formative era 0/34 16/103 6/48 22/185

0.00 1.44 14.67 4.96

0/150 9/145 32/60 41/355 Late Moche Era 8/148 46/72 6/10 60/230 Late Moche Era 6/192 44/137 7/19 57/348

0.00 6.21 55.33 11.54

0.00 4.37 12.18 7.38

0.00 0.04 0.0005 0.0066

5.37 63.89 60.00 26.1

2.53 15.33 2.71 5.48

0.12 < 0.0001 0.0005 0.02

3.13 32.12 36.84 16.39

1.93 5.51 3.90 1.49

– 0.04 0.05 0.22

0.00 15.00 20.00 13.22

0.00 15.34 12.50 11.89

(continued)

1  Patterns of Oral Paleopathology Over 3000 Years

117

Table 1 (continued)

Age class Alveolar abscesses, combined anterior and posterior dentitions 1 (0.14.9 yrs) 2 (15–44.9 yrs) 3 (45+) Summary G-value

Ntotal/naffected Formative era

0/90 0/220 2/124 2/434

Crude prevalence (%)

0.00 0.00 1.61 0.46

Ntotal/naffected Late Moche Era

0/381 14/224 6/146 20/751

Crude prevalence (%)

G

p

0.00 6.25 4.11 2.66

– 6.22 1.45 8.73

–