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21 - Nanchoc valley, Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Tom D. Dillehay
Edited by
Graeme Barker  and
Candice Goucher
Graeme Barker
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Candice Goucher
Affiliation:
Washington State University
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Summary

This chapter examines the emergence of food production in northern Peru during the early to middle Holocene period. There are three significant environmental drivers that potentially affected early food production in the Nanchoc valley during the early to middle Holocene period. Preserved charcoal from excavated house remains and garden plots was suitable for radiocarbon assays, which provide a chronology for several phases of human occupation from the late Pleistocene to the middle Holocene period. In some localities of the valley, the palaeoecological and archaeological analyses relate climatic and environmental change to specific stone tool industries, dietary regimes, site and house forms, food crops and differential human responses. Communal construction projects are noted for the Nanchoc valley during the middle Holocene period. The low energy requirements for early gardening in this seasonally dry forest would have made food production appear as the best option, as a small plot of irrigated land could produce a relatively high yield.

Keywords

Yellow riverChinese agricultureEast Asian culinary selectionYangtze basin
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History , pp. 539 - 554
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

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