"Models of Compromise in Settlement Pattern Studies: An Example From Coastal Peru" - Geoffrey W. Conrad (1978)

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Models of compromise in settlement

pattern studies: An example from coastal
Peru
a
Geoffrey W. Conrad
a
Dept. of Anthropology , Harvard University
Published online: 15 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Geoffrey W. Conrad (1977) Models of compromise in settlement pattern studies: An
example from coastal Peru, World Archaeology, 9:3, 281-298, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.1973.9979704
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1973.9979704
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Models of compromise in settlement pattern
studies: an example from coastal Peru
Geoffrey W. Conrad
Introduction
Downloaded by [Universite Laval] at 04:52 29 December 2014
In a discussion of the determinants of prehistoric settlement patterns in the south-

western United States, Plog and Hill (1971: 13) have argued that individuals and popu-
lations act either to maximize certain resources or to minimize the effort needed to
obtain those resources. My contention here is that, at least in the case of complex
societies, this statement is incorrect. Clearly, behaviour that maximizes gain or mini-
mizes effort for some resources may tend to minimize gain or maximize effort for others.
Complex societies, which must balance a variety of resources against numerous and
diverse needs, cannot confine their attention to several of those factors and ignore the
rest. Accordingly, the settlement patterns of such societies are not intended to optimize
exploitation of a few resources; instead, they represent attempts to arrive at a workable
compromise among many determinants (Trigger 1968: 53).
The purpose of this paper is to support these assertions through a study of the settle-
ment patterns of the Moche state, which dominated the North Coast of Peru around
A.D. 200-700.1 will focus first upon one of the state's provincial regions, the Viru Valley,
and attempt to show that the local settlement pattern was a compromise among several
identifiable determinants, as well as a reflection of the relative importance of those
considerations. I will then present comparative data from other provincial valleys to
show that their settlement patterns also represent compromises, but not necessarily the
one made in Viru. Given the facts that the data are incomplete and, in the case of Viru,
were gathered over thirty years ago, this attempt is best seen as a preliminary exercise
in method and theory; the specific results presented should be generally correct, but they
are far from definitive.
Methodological background
The method to be followed in developing a model of compromise is derived from
Trigger's (1968: 72) 'principle of hierarchical resolution of conflicting tendencies'^ This
principle states that in cases where the selection of a settlement pattern requires a
compromise among opposing considerations, the resulting configuration will reflect the
relative importance of the factors involved. ;
World Archaeology Volume 9 No. 3 Landscape archaeology
282 Geoffrey W. Conrad
Specifically, I intend to isolate several resources and considerations involved in Moche

settlement patterns. I will then treat each factor in turn as if it were the sole determinant
and derive a predicted settlement pattern based on optimizer principles of maximum
gain or minimum effort for that particular resource or consideration. Finally, I will
compare the predicted settlement patterns to the actual configuration. I do not expect
the actual pattern to be identical to any of the predicted ones; rather, the discrepancies
between predicted and observed patterns should reveal the relative importance of the
various factors and allow them to be ranked as determinants of settlement. That is, close
correspondence between predicted and actual patterns should indicate that the factor in
question was a highly important determinant; the greater the difference between pre-
dicted and observed configurations, the less important the factor.
Archaeological background
The archaeological region known as the North Coast of Peru is a 350-km. strip of
desert interrupted by a series of alluvial river valleys. The standard North Coast
chronology assigns the period c. A.D. 200-700 to a cultural phase known as Moche
(Donnan 1973: 1; Day 1976: 36-7). Five Moche subphases have been defined on the
basis of detailed changes in the characteristic ceramics of the period (Larco Hoyle 1948).
Archaeological investigations have identified the cultural phenomenon represented by
the Moche phase as a military expansionist state whose history can be outlined as follows.
During subphases I and II the state seems to have been confined to the Moche and
Chicama Valleys (fig. 1). It subsequently expanded to encompass the nine valleys from
M 81° ^X^^—^»* 77°

N LAMBAYEQUE ^ ^
ZANA
JEQUETEPEQUE
CHICAMA
PACIFIC OCEAN
l/pp OAAINI/AtiT' y^ V\V '/'A 9
50 100 NE PEÑA' 77 e
Figure i Map of the North Coast of Peru showing the valleys dominated by the Moche state
at the height of its power
Models of compromise in settlement pattern studies 283
Lambayeque in the north to Nepeña in the south, a distance of about 300 km. The bulk
of this expansion took place in subphases III and IV. Presumably most of the sites, and
certainly all of the large centres, considered in the following pages were established
during subphases III and IV, c. A. D. 300-600 (Donnan 1973:125,131 ; Proulx 1973:48).
Throughout subphases I-IV the capital of the state lay at the type site of Moche
(Huacas del Sol and de la Luna) in the Moche Valley (Donnan 1973: 125-6; Day 1976:
37). In subphase V, a relatively brief period, a new capital was established at the site of
Pampa Grande in Lambayeque (Day 1976: 40). Shortly thereafter the state collapsed.
The reasons for the shift of capital and ultimate collapse remain uncertain.
Published studies of Moche settlement patterns are available for three valleys: Viru
(Willey 1953), Santa (Donnan 1973), and Nepeña (Proulx 1968, 1973). The Viru data
were gathered by the Viru Valley Project of 1946, which produced a number of impor-
tant reports (Bennett 1950; Strong and Evans 1952; Collier 1955), including the first
systematic archaeological settlement pattern study (Willey 1953). (Members of the Viru
Valley Project used the name 'Huancaco' to identify the local manifestation of the Moche
phase; this term will not be employed here, except as the designation for one large site.)
Information from Santa and Nepeña will be used for comparative purposes, but I
have chosen to base my arguments on Willey's Viru data because, while they were the
least recently gathered, they are the most extensive and probably the most nearly
complete. A total of 106 Moche sites were recorded in Viru, compared to 85 in Santa
and 22 in Nepeña (Willey 1953: 178; Donnan 1973: 2; Proulx 1973: 40). Furthermore,
60 of the Santa sites and 13 of the Nepeña sites functioned solely as cemeteries (Donnan
1973: 11; Proulx 1973: 40); although the total is probably slightly higher (see below),
Willey (1953: 234) classified only 23 of the Viru sites as cemeteries. Hence Viru, which
contains the greatest number of habitation sites and public centres, provides the best
basis for discussion.
The Moche settlement pattern in the Viru Valley

General considerations
Initially, I will limit my remarks to the lower and middle reaches of the Viru Valley, the
area from the shoreline inland to the point where the valley constricts into its narrow
neck (at site V-51 in fig. 2). This lower and middle valley, a relatively broad alluvial
plain, is the zone most nearly approaching the uniform plain required by classic locational
models.
. Excluding cemeteries, there are 35 known Moche sites in lower and middle Viru.
These sites are listed in table r ; their distribution is shown in fig. 2. I have separated
them into the categories of centres (nine sites with public, or corporate labour, architec-
ture) and villages (twenty-six habitation sites lacking corporate labour architecture). As
is evident from table 1, there are some discrepancies between my classification and
Willey's (1953) that should be explained.
First, I have combined some sites that were discussed separately in the original report;
four villages and two centres are composed of two or more of Willey's sites. With one
exception, each of these sites is a cluster of discrete architectural complexes or refuse
TABLE I
Moche settlements in the lower and middle Viru Valley
Classification Site number Classification in Willey 1953
Primary centres (1) Huancaco group Pyramid-Dwelling-Construction Complexes

V-88/89/90/91/ (88, 89); Middens in Walled Enclosures (90,
92/93 91); Pyramid (92); Dwelling-Construction
Mound (93)
Secondary centres (2) V-67 Castillo Fortification Complex
V-280 Pyramid-Dwelling-Construction Complex
Tertiary centres (6) V-51 Agglutinated Village and Community Building
V-130 Castillo Fortification Complex
V-166 Pyramid-Dwelling-Construction Complex
V-168 Isolated Pyramid Mound
V-245 Isolated Pyramid Mound
V-276/288 Isolated Pyramid Mounds
Villages (26) V-io Exposed Dwelling Site

V-13 Exposed Dwelling Site
V-S9 Pyramid-Dwelling-Construction Complex
V-82 Midden
V-9S Isolated Pyramid Mound
V-102 Irregular Agglutinated Village and Semi-
Isolated Large House
V-110/113 Rectangular Enclosure Compound ( n o ) ;
Semi-Isolated Large Houses (113)
V-139 Midden
V-152/153 Pyramid-Dwelling-Construction Complex
V-162 Dwelling-Construction Mound
V-167 Isolated Pyramid Mounds
V-170 Midden
V-171 Occupation Site
V-236 Earth-Refuse Mound
V-248/249/2SO Earth-Refuse Mound (248); Dwelling-
Construction Mounds (249, 250)
V-259/260/261 Dwelling-Construction Mound (259); Earth-
Refuse Mounds (260, 261)
V-267 Midden
V-295 Dwelling-Construction Mounds
Sites eliminated from V-IS5 Pyramid-Dwelling-Construction Complex
consideration (4) V-2S8 Dwelling-Construction Mounds
- V-272 Earth-Refuse Mound
, V-308 Earth-Refuse Mound
deposits separated by distances of a few hundred metres or less. The single exception
is the Huancaco group ^—88/89/90/91/92/93), a large site that was arbitrarily sub-
divided for the purposes of specimen collection and cataloguing (Willey 1953: 205-6).
Second, several sites with corporate labour architecture are treated here as villages
(V-59, 95, 152/153, 167). In all of these cases except V-95 the only Moche remains are
village refuse; the public architecture definitely belongs to earlier periods (Willey 1953:
205, 213, 218). V-95 contains an undated pyramidal mound of earth or adobe bricks,
along with habitation refuse of several periods, including the Moche phase (Willey 1953 :
90, 218). Since the only definite traces of Moche occupation at V-95 are refuse deposits,
I have classified the site as a village.
Finally, I am not considering sites that served only as cemeteries and had no living
population. Therefore, I have eliminated four sites (V-155, 258, 272, 308) in which,
despite the presence of architecture or domestic debris from earlier periods, all Moche
materials were found in intrusive graves (Bennett 1950: 47; Willey 1953: 128, 214,
222-3; Collier 1955: 87-8).
Classification of centres
Centres are divided into the subcategories primary, secondary, and tertiary. (These
terms are used in a provincial sense only; obviously, even the primary centre in Viru was
subordinate to the capital of the state.) The basis for classification is corporate labour
investment as inferred from the size and extent of public architecture. This emphasis on
public architecture is grounded in an analogy to the Inca Empire (A.D. 1438-1532),
which dominated the entire Central Andean area at the time of the Spanish Conquest.
Ethnohistoric sources indicate that the Inca economy was based on a system of labour
taxation (mit'a) administered by a hierarchical state bureaucracy. The mit'a required
taxpayers to contribute a certain amount of labour to the state each year; all Inca public
projects were constructed through this system (Rowe 1946: 267-8; Murra 1958).
Moseley (1975) has been able to demonstrate that mii'a-like labour taxation was an
ancient Central Andean pattern, and specifically a characteristic of the Moche state.
Accordingly, my classification of centres is based on the assumption that in the Moche
state, as in the Inca Empire, a more important centre would control more taxpayers, and
would therefore receive a greater investment of corporate labour, than a less important
centre.
During the Moche phase there was one predominant focus of labour investment, and
hence one primary centre, in Viru. This site is the large Huancaco group (V-88/89/90/
91/92/93) on the south side of the valley; in fact, Huancaco may have been the largest
site ever established in Viru (Willey 1953: 205, 382).
There are two sites whose ruins reflect a labour investment less than that of Huancaco,
but clearly much greater than that of any other Moche site. These two sites, classified
here as secondary centres, are V-67 (Kroeber 1930: 77; Willey 1953: 226) and V-280
(Willey 1953: 214-5, 382).
Finally, six remaining sites with lesser public architecture are treated as tertiary
centres (V-51, 130, 166,168, 245, 276/288). There may be some finer distinctions among
them, but I cannot make any on the basis of the available data.
State imposition of settlement

In a particularly cogent article Cowgill (1975: 506) has cautioned archaeologists that we
cannot hope to understand prehistoric phenomena if we ignore the question of who
made and enforced the decisions underlying them. Therefore, it seems necessary to
explain that I assume the general structure of Moche settlement in Viru, and specifically
the locations of public centres, were imposed by the state. Again, this assumption is
based on analogy to later Central Andean states. The Inca Empire resettled provincial
populations both temporarily (Morris 1972) and permanently (Rowe 1946: 269-70).
State imposition of settlement has also been documented for the Chimu Empire (A.D.
1200-1470), which eventually controlled the northernmost 1,000 km. of the Peruvian
coast, including the entire territory of the earlier Moche state (Keatinge 1975).
As a corollary, the principal determinants of the Moche settlement pattern in Viru
should have been factors deemed important by the state. I cannot discuss, or at present
even identify, all such factors; instead, I will isolate three fairly obvious considerations
and treat each in turn as the sole determinant of an optimal distribution of the thirty-five
sites in the lower and middle valley. These factors are:
1 maximization of agricultural land (resource maximization) ;
2 minimization of the work required to cultivate that land (minimization of effort) ; and
3 maintenance of social and political control (administrative efficiency).
Resource maximization
In order to develop predicted settlement patterns for resource maximization and effort
minimization, I must make one further assumption: that the maximum limits of
prehistoric cultivation in Viru (figs. 2, 3, 5, 6) had been attained by the Moche phase.
The Viru Valley Project did collect some information on prehistoric irrigation and field
systems, but the data are not very detailed. In general, the available information suggests
that the maximum limits of prehistoric cultivation were approximated in Moche times,
but that some sections of land within these boundaries, particularly in the lower valley
near the coast, may not have been in use (Willey 1953: 364-5). Hence the assumption
stated above is probably to some degree incorrect, but the data at hand are insufficient to
permit a more precise delimitation of Moche farmlands in Viru.
Given these problems, the question remains: How should the thirty-five sites in
lower and middle Viru be distributed in order to maximize agricultural land? The
answer is obvious: if agricultural land is to be maximized, sites should not occupy
arable locations, and settlement should be restricted to zones outside the limits of culti-
vation. Since there are many ways in which sites can be distributed in the zones beyond
those limits, there is a large number of alternative settlement patterns that would serve the
purpose of maximizing agricultural land. Figure 3A illustrates one alternative, in which
settlements are evenly distributed along the margins of the cultivated part of the valley.
There are three points to note about the pattern shown in fig. 3A. First, this particular
distribution represents a compromise in which minimization of travel time to farmland
is subordinated to the desire to maximize that land, but not completely ignored. That is,
of all the patterns that remove sites from cultivable land, this one keeps them as close as
PACIFIC OCEAN
I I I | K m
O 12 3
CENTRES 1.V-88/89/90/9I/92/93 9. V-51

2.V-280 10.V-259/260/261
• PRIMARY VILLAGES*
3.V-67 11.V-152/153
H SECONDARY * 4.V-130 12.V-248/249/25O
'HILL 5.V-276/288 13.V-11O/113
A TERTIARY *
6.V-245 14.V-59
'MAXIMUM LIMIT OF 7.V-168 15.V-95
PREHISTORIC CULTIVATION 8.Y-166 16.V-167
Figure 2 Moche phase settlement pattern in the lower and middle Viru Valley (modified from
Willey 1953). Centres, combined sites, and reclassified sites are numbered in order to facilitate
comparison with the original report
possible to that land. Second, for the purpose of maximizing agricultural land the specific
locations of public centres are irrelevant, provided that they, like villages, lie outside the
limits of cultivation. Therefore, centres may be randomly distributed among the thirty-
five site locations shown infig.3A. Third, and most important, comparison of figs 2 and
3A shows that this predicted settlement pattern is very different from the actual one.
Unless one makes the undoubtedly erroneous assumption that only a small fraction of the
Viru Valley was farmed during the Moche phase, it seems clear that many sites lay
within the limits of cultivation on potentially arable land.
Minimization of effort
A settlement pattern can optimize agricultural effort by minimizing the amount of time
a farmer must spend travelling from home to fields. In other words, the problem here is
one of dividing the cultivated part of the valley among thirty-five sites in such a way that
the inhabitants of each site live as close as possible to the land they must farm.
Classical Iocational theory is based on the fact that the hexagon is the most economical
geometrical form for the equal division of an area among a number of points (Christaller
1933; Haggett 1966). The advantages of the hexagon are two-fold. First, it is one of
several regular polygons that can be packed in such a way as to cover all of the area in
question; a hexagonal grid contains no interstices. Second, of the packable polygons, the
hexagon is the one that most nearly approximates a circle - that is, the one in which all
points on the perimeter are as close as possible to being equidistant from the centre.
Accordingly, during the Moche occupation of the Viru Valley the optimal settlement
pattern for minimizing travel time from home to farmland would have been one in which
the thirty-five sites were arranged so that each lay at the centre of an equal hexagonal
field. This pattern is shown in fig. 3B.
Figure 3 Optimal settlement patterns for maximization of arable land (A) and minimization of
agricultural effort (B) in lower and middle Viru
Several aspects of this predicted distribution merit further consideration. Again, if the
sole determinant of settlement pattern is minimization of agricultural effort, the specific
locations of centres are irrelevant. If one assumes that at least a portion of the population
of all settlements was engaged in farming, centres may be randomly distributed among
the thirty-five locations shown in fig. 3B. More importantly, while the predicted settle-
ment pattern for maximization of farmland was very different from the actual configura-
tion, the expected pattern for minimization of agricultural effort is much closer to reality
(figs 2, 3A, 3B).
Administrative efficiency
The optimal settlement pattern for maintaining social and political control is a hexagonal
central place hierarchy (Christaller 1933). In accordance with Christaller's administrative
principle, each central place in this ideal hierarchy has a K-value of 7. That is, each
central place has uncontested control of its dependent places. No dependent place is
shared by two or more central places, since sharing of dependent places among central
places would create confusion, undercutting administrative efficiency. (For more
complete discussions of K-functions see Haggett 1966: 118-25; Smith 1975; Blanton
1976.)
In the specific case of the Viru Valley, which has a three-tiered hierarchy of centres,
the ideal site distribution would be similar to the one Marcus (1973) has identified
among the lowland Classic Maya: secondary centres should be distributed hexagonally
around the primary centre, tertiary centres should define smaller hexagons around the
primary and secondary centres, and villages should cluster around the tertiary centres.
Since the lower and middle reaches of the Viru Valley contain only two secondary and
six tertiary centres, it is obvious that the hexagonal cells would be incomplete. None the
less, it is possible to derive a predicted hexagonal central place hierarchy in a form
truncated by the limits of the valley.
The first step is to determine the predicted locations of six secondary centres defining
a hexagonal cell around the primary centre at Huancaco. In order to do so I must
compute the radius of the hexagon, which will also be the length of each of its sides.
Note that the two existing secondary centres are nearly equidistant from Huancaco
(fig. 2): V-67 n e s 8 km. from Huancaco, while V-280 is 7-2 km. from Huancaco; the
average of these distances is 7-6 km.
I have not included the distance separating V-67 from V-280, 11-7 km., in the
computation. The ratio of this distance to the average distance separating V-67 an< i
V-280 from Huancaco is approximately 1*5:1. Furthermore, lines drawn connecting
V-67 a n d V-280 to Huancaco form an angle of about ioo°. In a hexagon the ratio of
the distance between two adjacent apices, whose radii form an angle of 6o° at the centre,
to the distance between apices and centre,- in other words, the ratio of side to radius - is
1:1 (fig. 4A). However, the ratio of the distance between two apices whose radii
intersect at an angle of 120o to the distance between apices and centre is V3 •' 1, or
approximately 1*7 : 1 (fig. 4B). Since the geometrical configuration of V-67, V-280, and
Huancaco more closely approaches the latter case, the distance between the two
secondary centres should not be treated as a measure of the radius of the hexagon.
V3" r
Figure 4 Comparison of the ratios of the distance between two apices to the length of the radius
of a hexagon. In Case A, radii drawn to the apices in question define an angle of 60° at the
centre. The distance separating the two apices (the length of a side of the hexagon) is equal to
the radius; the ratio is 1:1. In Case B, where radii drawn to the apices intersect to form an
angle of 120o, the ratio of the distance between the apices to the length of the radius is -v/3 :i.
The latter value can be verified by the Pythagorean theorem
Therefore, the predicted locations of the secondary centres may be ascertained by

circumscribing a hexagon with a radius of 7-6 km. around the primary centre. The
secondary centres should lie at the apices of this hexagon. Figure 5.1 shows that four of
six such secondary centres would lie outside the limits of the valley and would not be
expected to exist.
The next step is to predict the locations of tertiary centres arranged hexagonally about
the primary and secondary centres; again, the hexagonal distributions will be truncated
by the limits of the valley. I will begin by delimiting fields of uncontested spatial control
around the primary centre and the two secondary centres that would be expected to
exist. Those fields can be defined by circumscribing about the centres the largest possible
packed hexagons, whose arrangement is determined by constructing perpendicular
bisectors of the radii of the original hexagonal cell. The result is a result of three packed
hexagons rotated 90° in relation to the original one (fig. 5.2).
However, tertiary centres should not lie along the perimeters of these three hexagonal
cells. If they did, some of them would be dependent places shared by two central places
(the primary centre and one of the secondary centres), and Christaller's administrative
principle would be violated. Hence in Step 3 smaller hexagonal cells must be circum-
scribed around the primary and secondary centres by connecting the midpoints of the
sides of the hexagons created in Step 2 (fig. 5.3).
Again, tertiary centres should not lie at the apices of the hexagons created in Step 3,
as some of them would be shared. However, if they lie at the midpoints of the sides,
none are shared, and Christaller's administrative principle is satisfied. Furthermore,
tertiary centres located in this manner are still arranged hexagonally around the primary
and secondary centres (fig. 5.4). Accordingly, the expected sites of the tertiary centres
Î /,
/ í c
\ 1 • '
\ 1
jxrX
\ /
1
\
A
J
1
'l I
/ 1
/ 1
Figure 5 Derivation of a predicted hexagonal central place hierarchy for lower and middle Viru.
Heavy dashed lines indicate margins of valley ; lighter dashed lines identify segments of hexagons
lying outside valley; other symbols same as fig. 2
1 Predicted locations of secondary centres define a hexagonal cell with a radius of 7-6 km.
around the primary centre ; four of the six secondary centres lie outside the limits of the valley
and would not be expected to exist.
2 Maximal packed hexagonal cells (fields of uncontested spatial control) are constructed around
the primary centre and the two expected secondary centres. The perimeter of the field
surrounding the primary centre consists of perpendicular bisectors of the radii of the hexagon
created in Step 1.
3 In order to satisfy Christaller's administrative principle (no sharing of dependent places),
smaller hexagons are inscribed in the hexagons of Step 2 by connecting the midpoints of
their sides.
4 The predicted sites of the tertiary centres are the midpoints of the sides of the hexagons
created in Step 3. Tertiary centres located in this manner define still smaller hexagons about
the primary and secondary centres.
are those depicted in fig. 5.4. Since there are only six such centres in the lower and middle
valley, in some cases pairs of predicted sites must be viewed as alternative locations for
a single tertiary centre.
Figure 6 compares the spatial arrangement of secondary and tertiary centres in this ideal
hexagonal central place hierarchy with their actual distribution. As may be seen, the
expected and observed configurations are quite similar. Most of the centres lie within a
kilometre of their predicted location.
Villages would then be expected to cluster around tertiary centres. Villages do tend to
be arranged in this manner, but the pattern is not rigid (fig. 2), probably because tight
clustering of villages would greatly increase travel time to farmlands. None the less, of
the three predicted settlement patterns that have been presented, the one that optimizes
social and political control of the valley is clearly the closest to the actual site distribution.
LOCATION Expected ActuaJ

Secondary Centre
Tertiary Centre A
Figure 6 Comparison of the actual distribution of secondary and tertiary centres to their
locations in a predicted hexagonal central place hierarchy. The location of the primary centre has
been taken as a given datum
Synthesis
Moche settlement in middle and lower Viru did not optimize any single consideration:
none of the three predicted patterns corresponds exactly to the observed pattern.
Instead, the available data support Flannery's (1972: 418-19) more general argument
that in complex societies service functions outweigh other factors as determinants of
1
settlement. The predicted site distribution for resource maximization is very different
from the actual pattern, the expected distribution for minimization of effort is closer to
reality, and the predicted pattern for optimum administrative efficiency most nearly
approaches the observed configuration. This evidence indicates that the settlement
pattern imposed by the Moche state in lower and middle Viru reflects a compromise in
which maintaining social and political control of the local population was the most
important consideration, minimization of agricultural effort was a secondary factor, and
maximization of arable land was the least important determinant of the three. (This last
statement means only that the state did not attempt to restrict settlement from agri-
cultural land. I am not implying that increasing the amount of cultivable land was deemed
totally insignificant by the Moche state, or that it was not a highly important factor in
other state concerns - canal construction, for example.) Hence a model of compromise
derived from the Viru settlement pattern would rank the three determinants discussed
here in the order of significance listed above.
The question of predictability

Current archaeological theory places great emphasis on predictive models, and several
volumes have been devoted to the subject (Clarke 1972; Renfrew 1973). Recently,
however, a number of scholars have expressed reservations about such models, stating
that specific prehistoric phenomena cannot be predicted by taking conclusions based on
other data, elevating them to the level of cultural laws or 'law-like statements', and
applying those laws deductively to the case at hand (Adams 1969: i n ; Leach 1973;
Lamberg-Karlovsky 1975: 341-7). In view of this controversy, it seems necessary to ask
whether a model derived from lower and middle Viru can be applied to Moche settle-
ment patterns in other provincial areas.
If this question is asked in its most general sense, the answer is 'yes'. It seems reason-
able to expect that Moche settlement in other regions required compromises among
various determinants and that the resulting patterns reflected the relative importance of
the considerations involved. In other words, I believe that the principle of hierarchical
resolution of conflicting tendencies is valid. However, if the question is phrased more
specifically - Can we expect other Moche settlement patterns to reflect the same
compromise, involving identical determinants ranked in the same order, as Viru? - the
answer must be negative, or at best 'not necessarily'.
Perhaps most strikingly, a model developed in lower and middle Viru cannot even be
applied to the upper reaches of the valley (the zone upstream from site V-51 in fig. 2),
where topography seems to be the primary determinant of settlement pattern. Upper
Viru consists of narrow bottomlands enclosed by the foothills of the Andes. This
constriction of the upper valley has two significant effects: it severely limits the potential
amount of arable land, but it also shortens travel time to that land from points on the
valley's margins. As a result, the desire to maximize farmland would not conflict with
other determinants of settlement pattern in the upper valley, and Moche sites in this
zone, unlike those further downstream, tend to lie along the edges of the valley (Willey
Figures 7 and 8 depict the known distributions of Moche sites in the Santa and Nepeña
Valleys. The two patterns are not identical, nor does either seem to be the result of the
same compromise made in Viru. While the Santa pattern (fig. 7) shows some similarities
to that of lower and middle Viru, there are also some significant differences. In Santa,
'"I
N
Figure 7 Moche phase settlement pattern in the Santa Valley (modified from Donnan 1973).
Key same as fig. 2, except that dashed lines indicate the limits oí modern cultivation. Sites are
numbered to facilitate comparison with the original report
unlike lower and middle Viru, secondary centres are not almost equidistant from the
primary centre. Their spacing probably reflects the topography of the Santa Valley,
which is tightly constricted by Andean foothills for nearly all of its length. Furthermore,
the Santa sites exhibit a greater tendency to lie along the valley margins. This pattern is
probably due, at least in part, to the destruction of bottomland sites by erosion or
cultivation (Donnan 1973: 11), but it may also be the result of narrow topography, as in
upper Viru. Finally, in contrast to the Viru settlements, which tend to be uniformly
distributed throughout the valley, the Santa sites occur in discrete clusters (Donnan
1973: 13). This clustering may be a defensive arrangement necessitated by Santa's
location near the southern frontier of the Moche state (fig. 1).
Moche settlement in the Nepeña Valley, the southern boundary of the Moche state
(figs 1, 8), displays even greater differences from Viru. The only administrative sites in
Sites (Prefix PV-31-)

1.38/40/69/70/218/220
2.187
3.103
PACIFIC
OCEAN
Villages
• Moche Ceramics Present
o Moche Ceramics Absent
Maximum Limit of Modern
Km
Cultivation
I I I I I l
0 1 2 3 4 5
Figure 8 Moche phase settlement pattern in the Nepeña Valley (modified from Proulx 1973);
except where indicated, key same as fig. 2. Sites are numbered to facilitate comparison with the
original report
Nepeña are a primary centre in the middle of the valley and a possible tertiary centre a
few kilometres upstream. This distribution neither restricts settlement from arable land
nor minimizes travel time to that land, and it certainly appears inadequate for maintain-
ing tight social and political control over presumably contemporaneous villages in the
upper and lower valley. Instead, the Nepeña pattern seems to mirror a primarily defen-
sive strategy in which nearly all state personnel were housed in a single protected location.
DWA
While this emphasis on defence is not surprising in a frontier zone (Proulx 1973: 48),
it would not be predicted by the specific model developed in Viru.
Conclusion
I have attempted to show that the settlement pattern imposed by the Moche state in the
lower and middle Viru Valley did not optimize any single factor; instead, it was the result
of a compromise among a number of determinants. Three of those factors have been
identified and ranked as follows, in order of increasing importance: maximization of
arable land, minimization of agricultural effort, and maintenance of sociopolitical
control. This ranking was achieved by comparing the optimal settlement pattern for each
consideration to the actual configuration ; the closer the correspondence between expected
and observed patterns, the more important the factor in question as a determinant of
settlement. Although only three considerations have been discussed here, other factors
should be subject to similar treatment.
Comparative data have been taken from three other provincial regions - the upper
Viru, Santa, and Nepeña Valleys. None of the four Moche settlement patterns that have
been examined is identical to any of the others. Each reflects a compromise, but those
compromises involved varying sets of determinants. Where determinants were shared,
their relative importance often differed from case to case.
The implication to be drawn from these results is that the sub-optimal behaviour
inherent in the compromises (and satisficing decisions) made by complex societies
cannot be foretold with certainty. The understanding of one prehistoric compromise
does not automatically convey knowledge of all the considerations involved in another,
nor does it necessarily indicate the relative importance attached to similar factors in
different cases. Cowgill (1975: 515) has summarized the matter neatly:
The problem is not that human behavior is unintelligible, at least after the fact, but rather
that we cannot always predict which of several reasonable choices will be made, or, if there
are contending interests, which will prevail in a specific instance.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Drs Gordon R. Willey and Garth L. Bawden for their comments
on a draft version of this paper. I am also grateful to Barbara Westman, who prepared
the illustrations.
2.VÍÜ.1977 Dept. of Anthropology
Harvard University
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Abstract
Conrad, G. W.
Models of compromise in settlement pattern studies: an example from coastal
Peru
The settlement patterns of complex societies require compromises among numerous deter-
minants. In the case of the lower and middle Viru Valley, a provincial region of the Moche state
of coastal Peru (A.D. 200-700), three of these considerations can be identified and ranked in
order of increasing importance as follows: maximization of agricultural land, minimization of
agricultural effort, and maintenance of sociopolitical control. This ranking is achieved by
deriving the settlement pattern that would optimize each factor and then comparing those
optimal site distributions to the actual configuration; the greater the similarity, the more
important the factor in question as a determinant of settlement. Finally, comparative data from
other provincial regions of the Moche state are presented in order to show that their settlement
patterns also reflect compromises, but not necessarily the one made in Viru.

"Models of Compromise in Settlement Pattern Studies: An Example From Coastal Peru" - Geoffrey W. Conrad (1978)

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Models of compromise in settlement

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In a discussion of the determinants of prehistoric settlement patterns in the south-

Specifically, I intend to isolate several resources and considerations involved in Moche

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The Moche settlement pattern in the Viru Valley

Classification Site number Classification in Willey 1953

Primary centres (1) Huancaco group Pyramid-Dwelling-Construction Complexes

Villages (26) V-io Exposed Dwelling Site

State imposition of settlement

CENTRES 1.V-88/89/90/9I/92/93 9. V-51

Therefore, the predicted locations of the secondary centres may be ascertained by

LOCATION Expected ActuaJ

here in the order of significance listed above.

The question of predictability

Sites (Prefix PV-31-)

Blanton, R. E. 1976. Anthropological studies of cities. Annual Review of Anthropology.

Proulx, D. A. 1973. Archaeological Investigations in the Nepeña Valley, Peru. University of

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