Collaborative Proposal: Impacts of El Nino Flooding on Sociopolitical Organization in the Moche Valley, Peru

在国家科学基金会的支持下，布莱恩·比尔曼博士和加里·哈克贝里博士将在秘鲁北部沿海的莫奇山谷进行为期两个季节的地质实地考察。作为厄尔尼诺南方涛动暖期的区域性表现，厄尔尼诺(EN)影响着全球大片地区的气候。在秘鲁北部沿海，强烈的埃尼事件导致大量鱼类死亡，在原本极度干旱的沙漠中发生灾难性的洪水。有人提出，过去发生的重大事件对该区域史前农业和海洋社会造成了压力，因此是文化变革的催化剂，包括社会组织的变革。这种关系的确切性质存在争议的部分原因是，可能与史前文化事件相关的史前事件的可靠年表并不存在。1997年，在对莫奇山谷中部进行的一次地质考古调查中，在奎布拉达德洛斯奇诺斯河口发现了一条100米长的溪流。4米高的露头包含至少11个离散的洪水沉积物，中间夹杂着有机土壤和文化材料。这提供了一个机会来确定至少11个强烈的史前事件，并将这些事件与硅谷的文化年表联系起来。比尔曼博士和哈克贝里博士将对地层进行记录和年代测定。这将包括对沉积物进行剖面图、摄影和实验室分析，以准确识别和区分沉积和成土过程。年龄控制将由临时诊断陶瓷和放射性碳年代确定的木炭来提供。我们的目标是建立一个大约2500年的代理记录。在此基础上，通过与其他古洪水和考古遗址的比较，可以检验古气候事件和文化变迁之间的同步性，并分析秘鲁沿海史前洪水的纬度变化。这项研究将对古气候学家和考古学家都有意义，并增加我们对严重环境扰动如何影响文化发展的理解。它将为导致复杂社会兴衰的进程带来新的曙光。

With National Science Foundation support Drs. Brian Billman and Gary Huckleberry will conduct two seasons of geological fieldwork in the Moche Valley in coastal Northern Peru. A regional manifestation of the warm phase of the El Nino Southern Oscillation, El Nino (EN) affects climate over a broad part of the globe. In northern coastal Peru, strong EN events result in massive fish die-offs and catastrophic floods in an otherwise hyperarid desert. It has been proposed that strong EN events in the past stressed prehistoric agricultural and maritime societies in the region and was thus a catalyst for cultural change, including changes in social organization. The exact nature of this relationship is debated in part because a solid chronology of prehistoric EN events that could be correlated to prehistoric cultural events does not exist. In 1997 a geoarchaeological reconnaissance of the middle Moche Valley resulted in the discovery of a 100+ meter long streamcut at the mouth of Quebrada de los Chinos. The 4 meter high exposure contains at least 11 discrete flood deposits intercalated with organic soils and cultural materials. This provides an opportunity to date at least 11 strong prehistoric events and to correlate these to the cultural chronology for the Valley. Drs. Billman and Huckleberry will document and date the stratigraphy. This will include profiling, photography and laboratory analysis of the sediments to accurately identify and discriminate depositional and pedogenetic processes. Age control will be provided by temporally diagnostic ceramics and radiocarbon dated charcoal. The objective is to construct an approximately 2,500 year proxy record. On this basis it will be possible to test the synchronicity between EN events and cultural change and to analyze the latitudinal variability of prehistoric EN flooding in coastal Peru by comparing the Quebrada de los Chinos stratigraphy with other paleoflood and archaeological sites.This research will be relevant to both paleoclimatologists and archaeologists and increase our understanding of how cultural development is affected by severe environmental perturbation. It will shed new light in the processes which lead to the rise, and decline, of complex societies.