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，Brian Billman博士和加里Huckleberry博士将在秘鲁北方沿海的Moche山谷进行两个季节的地质实地考察。厄尔尼诺现象是厄尔尼诺南方涛动暖相的一种区域性表现，它影响着地球仪大部分地区的气候。在北方沿海秘鲁，强烈的EN事件导致大量鱼类死亡和灾难性的洪水，否则超干旱的沙漠。有人提出，过去强烈的EN事件强调了该地区的史前农业和海洋社会，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是有争议的，部分原因是因为一个坚实的年表，史前EN事件，可能与史前文化事件并不存在。1997年，对莫切河谷中部进行了地质考古勘察，在克夫拉达德洛斯奇诺斯河口发现了一条100多米长的河流。4米高的暴露包含至少11个离散的洪水沉积物，其中插入有机土壤和文化材料。这提供了一个机会，日期至少11个强大的史前事件，并将这些与文化年表的山谷。 比尔曼和哈克贝利博士将记录地层并确定年代。这将包括对沉积物进行剖面分析、摄影和实验室分析，以准确识别和区分沉积和成土过程。年龄控制将由时间诊断陶瓷和放射性碳定年木炭提供。目标是建立一个大约2,500年的代理记录。在此基础上，将有可能测试EN事件和文化变化之间的同步性，并通过比较克夫拉达德洛斯奇诺斯地层与其他古森林和考古遗址，分析史前EN洪水在沿海秘鲁的纬向变异性，这项研究将是相关的古气候学家和考古学家，并增加我们对文化发展是如何受到严重的环境扰动的理解。它将为复杂社会的兴衰过程提供新的线索。

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.