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The Chicama-Moche Canal: Failure or Success? An Alternative Explanation for an Incomplete Canal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

James S. Kus
James S. Kus*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, California State University, Fresno, CA 93740
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Abstract

Several articles describing the ancient Chicama-Moche Intervalley Canal in northern coastal Peru are criticized. Tectonic uplift was probably not the primary cause of the abandonment of the canal construction project. The Chimu were skilled engineers. The Intervalley Canal did function in a limited manner. It is proposed that the canal was built as a political response to social pressures in the Moche Valley caused by environmental stress (drought). Abandonment of the canal construction project took place when drought ended.

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Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , April 1984 , pp. 408 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1984

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