Dating the Ascope Canal System: Competition for Water during the Late Intermediate Period in the Chicama Valley, North Coast of Peru

Abstract

Here we present the first 14C ages for the Ascope Canal System (ACS), a large pre-Hispanic hydraulic network in the Chicama Valley on the north coast of Peru. Composed of multiple alignments that irrigated areas north of the river, our results indicate that the ACS was constructed and operated in the Late Intermediate Period, ca. A.D. 1000-1400. This overlaps in time with the Chicama-Moche Intervalley Canal that diverted water on the south side of the Chicama River and extended to the city of Chan Chan. Conservative estimates of discharge capacity indicate that the canals combined would have exceeded stream flow in the Chicama River half of the year. The ACS appears to have functioned for several centuries and would have been in direct competition with the Intervalley Canal with, apparently, insufficient water for both systems and other Chicama Valley canals during most of the year. This study underscores the complexities of understanding the operations and histories of irrigation systems in complex societies.

Life History and Origin of the Camelids Provisioning a Mass Killing Sacrifice During the Chimú Period: Insight from Stable Isotopes

“…The Chimú state controlled a vast territory of about 1000 km along the Pacific coast, ranging from the modern border between Ecuador and Peru to the present-day capital of Lima (Figure 1). The Chimú state was involved in a large exchange network (Topic 1982) and was sustained by intensive agriculture, with fields fed by a sophisticated web of hydraulic canals (Farrington and Park 1978;Huckleberry, Caramanica, and Quilter 2017;Ortloff 1981).…”

Building resilience from risk: Interactions across ENSO, local environment, and farming systems on the desert north coast of Peru (1100BC–AD1460)

“…Just outside of the floodplain, surrounding and separating each river valleys are desert sedimentary plains or plateaus, known as pampas. While today these landscapes are typically devoid of agricultural activity, ancient canals, fields, and prepared surfaces have been recorded especially along the edges of the modern irrigated floodplain (Caramanica et al, 2020;Eling, 1987;Hayashida, 2006;Huckleberry et al, 2018;Kus, 1972;Watson, 1979). Pampas are distinct from river valleys both in geological form and structure (Hosmer, 1959).…”

Expanded agroecological niches and redistributed risks in northern Peru’s Chicama Valley during late-Holocene ENSO climate changes

“…Extensive archeological excavation and survey projects document a complex socio- environmental history for Chicama spanning from the late Pleistocene to the historic period (Elera Arévalo, 1998; Bird and Hyslop, 1985; Briceño, 1999, 2011; Caramanica, 2018; Chauchat, 1975; Chauchat et al, 1998; Clément, 2015; Conrad, 1977; Dillehay et al, 2012; Franco et al, 2001; Gálvez Mora and Briceño, 2001; Gálvez Mora and Runcio, 2015; Goodbred et al, 2020; Huckleberry et al, 2018; Koons, 2015; Krzanowski, 1985; Leonard and Glenn, 1992; Netherly, 1984; Shoji, 2018; Toshihara, 2002; Vining, 2018; Watson, 1979).…”

“…Most archeological investigations have focused on the valley's floodplain and adjacent low-slope desert margins, where largescale irrigation is viable with relative ease. Well-documented irrigation systems were used to increase plant-available water (PAW) locally and expand cultivable areas (Clément, 2017;Huckleberry et al, 2018;Kus, 1975;Netherly, 1984;Ortloff et al, 1982;Watson, 1979). This evidence, combined with a lack of significant modern land use in desert areas and the region's general aridity, have contributed to the conventional wisdom that non-riparian zones were largely inhospitable to most productive activities.…”

“…Elevation, slope, and soil depth are the principal edaphic and topographic factors differentiating cultivable from non-cultivable areas. Archeological and modern irrigation canals (Clément, 2017;Huckleberry et al, 2018;Kus, 1975;Netherly, 1984;Watson, 1979) and "reclamation" of planting surfaces, as well as climatedriven overbank flooding, have left a heavy cumulative imprint on Chicama's deltaic plain. Anthrosols 0.2-1 m thick developed in portions of the Chicama Valley between approximately 1.8 and 0.4 kyr BP (Goodbred et al, 2020;Vining, 2018).…”