Through the looking glass: re-assessing

the role of agro-pastoralism in the

north-central Andean highlands

Kevin Lane

Abstract

Archaeological research in the Andes has emphasized agriculture to the detriment of all other modes
of production. A marked bias towards research on the coast, where crop farming predominates, and
prejudices arising from the prevailing agro-centric perspective has given rise to a wealth of
information concerning agricultural adaptations to this vertical environment. This paper seeks to
redress the balance by investigating the precocious nature of agro-pastoralist traditions in the north-
central highlands of Peru (AD 1000–1570).
I challenge current ideas concerning the mainstay of subsistence in the Prehispanic high Andes
that essentially emphasize farming to the detriment of other modes of production. Rather, I argue
for a rich tableau of closely articulated groups of agro-pastoral and mixed farming communities
ensconced in the kichwa, suni and puna areas of the cordillera. In these mixed communities the
archaeological evidence suggests that it is the camelid herders who controlled and exercised power
over the mixed farming communities with a concomitant specialization and intensification of the
pastoralist economy.

Keywords

Cordillera Negra (Peru); north-central Andes; Prehispanic; agro-pastoralism; hydraulic technology.

Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old room
was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was as different as possible.
(Alice through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, 1871)

Introduction

Developing the theme of agro-pastoralism in the Prehispanic Andes, this paper is divided
into three parts. An initial section addresses the thorny issue of what is meant by

World Archaeology Vol. 38(3): 493–510 Archaeology at Altitude

ª 2006 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online
DOI: 10.1080/00438240600813806
494 Kevin Lane

agro-pastoralism in the Andean context. This is followed by a second section that

introduces a case study demonstrating the complex nature of agro-pastoral adaptations to
the Chorrillos Valley of the Cordillera Negra, Peru. To differentiate between herders and
farmers I apply the concept that communities tend to settle close to their main production
zones (Mayer 1985). Nevertheless, because of the prevalence of agro-centric perspectives in
the existing literature it is not possible simply to count the number of corrals in an area
and suggest that a community is agro-pastoral. The avenue of evidence used to split the
farmers from the herders is through the use of technology. Technology reflects on the
communities that build it, emphasizing their needs and perceptions of the world
(Lemonnier 1993; Pfaffenberger 1992). I argue that the technological choices of these
communities show a commitment to herding as the foundation of highland society in the
study area and translate into real power and control of scarce water resources by herder
elements within those communities.
Encapsulating one of the identified communities within the survey area, the Chorrillos
Valley, in the headwaters of the coastal Nepeña Valley, encompasses a rich variety of
hydrological architecture that straddles the suni-puna ecotone and suggests an agro-
pastoral mode of production. An analysis of the productive capacity of the valley
compared to results of an earlier analysis of the economy of the Breque area of the
Chaclancayo River (Lane 2000) supports the conclusion that herding was extensive and
productive across the Cordillera Negra during the late Prehispanic period. I end with a
discussion about the economic and social implications of complex agro-pastoralism in the
Andean region.

Defining agro-pastoralism

Agro-pastoralism is a much disputed term (see Bonavia 1996; Flores Ochoa 1968; Rabey
1989) surrounded by controversy. Nevertheless, agro-pastoralism should not be viewed
simply as herding with a bit of farming conducted alongside. I define agro-pastoralism as
a diversified form of pastoralism that integrates farming, and it is this process of
integration of agriculture and the level at which it occurs that shape the individual agro-
pastoralist community. Therefore agro-pastoralism does not exist as a single, standard
mode of production; rather, there are many agro-pastoralisms graded according to degree
of agricultural or pastoralist practice in a given community. Nevertheless all these forms
of agro-pastoralism share a commonality, in that it is a way of life organized around
herding.
To characterize this way of life based around herding fully, it is necessary to
return to accepted definitions of pastoralism. Pastoralism itself is a contested term,
initially regarded as inherent in societies that do not practise farming, owning only
animals and living a nomadic lifestyle (Goldschmidt 1965; Khazanov 1984; Krader
1959). This prerequisite of nomadism has been used in the Andes, by Franklin (1982)
and Rabey (1989) among others, to discount the existence of pastoralism in these
highlands.
Yet a propensity to nomadism is not the only consideration relevant here. Salzman
(2004) shows that sedentism or nomadism are not dominant factors in assessing
 Through the looking glass 495

pastoralism. Movement is to some extent inherent in all types of pastoralist communities,

yet it can range from nomadism to daily transhumance rounds. Salzman (1996) describes
pastoralism as that form of production involving animals as a capital resource that is
inherently self-reproducing, easily fractionable between people and highly mobile.
Animals are also particularly vulnerable to theft and disease, and are a resource that
requires pasture and water for its successful existence. Satisfactory as this list of features
common to pastoralism is, I would add one more, which is what Cribb (1991) has
characterized as ‘thinking nomadic’. ‘Thinking nomadic’ is simply the result of effectively
managing the yearly cycle around the needs of the animals rather than of other economic
activities. This cognitive perspective on pastoralism is crucial.
Returning to the Andes, already in the 1960s the eminent Peruvian anthropologist Jorge
Flores Ochoa (1979 [1968]) made a persuasive case for the consideration of the
communities of Paratı́a in south-central Peru as predominantly pastoralists. He states
that ‘we should take into account the emphasis the society places on animal husbandry –
the emotions that such an occupation arouses’ (Flores Ochoa 1979 [1968]: 8, emphasis in
original). By stressing the emotive processes involved in effective herding, Flores Ochoa
neatly encapsulates what it means to be a herder.
In keeping with this explanation, a person’s productive mode might be part-farming
and part-herding, yet it is what he or she considers himself or herself to be that is of
prime importance. If people and communities rear and own animals they are not
necessarily herders, but, if ‘keeping herd animals requires human beings to shape their
lives – socially, culturally, economically, and ideologically – in ways that are structured
by an interdependence with animals’ (Chang and Koster 1994), then their mindset
becomes in essence ‘pastoralist’, even though they might be engaged in farming. It is
under this broad definition of pastoralism that many Andean highland subsistence
systems should be considered as comprised of herders. Pastoralism, then, is primarily a
cognitive-economic activity whereby people–animal relations are defined by a sym-
biosis that emphasizes the primacy of animal products and biological cycles over all
others.
Therefore, that a pastoralist community engages in farming does not necessarily mean
that it stops being pastoralist, as Salzman states:

Pastoral society is almost never exclusively pastoral. Almost every population heavily
involved in raising livestock on natural pasture is also seriously engaged in other
productive activities. . . . To the degree that they are producing for their own
consumption, pastoralists will have multi-resource or mixed economies.
(Salzman 2004: 139)

Agro-pastoralism should therefore be viewed as a type of multi-resourced pastoralism

that involves agriculture. However, agro-pastoralism is not immutable and many different
variations exist, emphasizing agriculture to a lesser or greater extent within their economic
make-up. Neither are agro-pastoralist communities static; there are constant shifts
between more herding or more farming through time. These constant variations and shifts
are subject to the social, political, ecological and geographical milieux in which these
communities exist.
496 Kevin Lane

Andean agro-pastoralism

In the Andes agro-pastoralism is an adaptation that has a distinct history (Carhuallanqui

1998; Flores Ochoa 1979 [1968]; Kuznar 1995; Murra 1965); it is also an activity often
associated with the highlands, and linked to altitude. Therefore the appropriate models to
follow are closer to the mountain transhumance practised in the circum-Mediterranean
area, such as in Sardinia (Angioni 1996), Greece (Campbell 1964) and Turkey (Cribb
1991) or the more specialized Alpwirtschaft mountain agro-pastoralism of the Alps and
Himalayas (Rhoades and Thompson 1975), and not the plains pastoralism described for
parts of Africa and Asia (Evans-Pritchard 1940; Khazanov 1984).
In the Andes, as in the mountainous places mentioned above, it is the vertical landscape
that precludes a substantial physical division between herding and farming since the two
zones are invariable stacked on top of each other. Similarly, in the example of Sardinia,
farmers and herders live side by side in common villages, each practising their own set of
activities, be they farming, herding or a mixture of both, yet with very separate identities
(Salzman 1996). At a physical level agro-pastoralism in the Andes has been viewed by
Browman (1990) as a highly specialized form of production that emphasizes risk
management, the basic goal being diversification through the combination of different
economic strategies.
Thus in the highlands of South America farming shifts gradually into herding across the
transition between the highest areas of practicable agriculture and those of the alpine
tundra or puna that characterizes the highest Andean sierra. This transitional zone is
usually located between 3800 and 4200m asl, depending on latitude and local conditions of
exposure. The contiguous nature of these closely stacked zones has led to the development
of a very close relationship between these two modes of production across the region,
resulting in a mountain agro-pastoralism in the Andes.
Yet varied forms of this mountain agro-pastoralism exist in the Andes, from the
long-distance transhumant pastoralism documented for the southern Andean dry and
salt puna (Dillehay and Nuñez 1988; Kuznar 1995), to the tuber cultivation agro-
pastoralism traditional to the vast tundra prairies of the south-central and central Andes
(Flannery et al. 1989; Flores Ochoa 1968), to the highly sedentary agro-pastoralism
characteristic of the humid eastern Andean range (Krapovickas 1984; Webster 1973;
Yamamoto 1985).
In this article I focus on the form of agro-pastoralism that prevailed in the north-central
highlands, especially between the altitudes of 3500 and 5200m during the latter part of
Andean prehistory, specifically, though not exclusively, between AD 900 and AD1532.1
Although it is possible that the type of agro-pastoralism practised and especially the
technology used in the north-central Andes had roots in the period before AD 900, the
evidence to date does not substantiate this. It is for this reason that I have focused
particularly on this time period.
In this region, the vertical nature of the geography, coupled with a high degree of
humidity suggests that the division of past land use into agricultural and pastoral sectors
was probably quite compressed and difficult to disaggregate. This pattern bears many
similarities to the pattern in the eastern Andes (Krapovickas 1984; Webster 1973;
Yamamoto 1985). It is thus necessary to distinguish between agriculturalists located in this
 Through the looking glass 497

transitional zone who owned animals, known as mixed farmers, and the neighbouring
pastoralists who cultivated crops, known as agro-pastoralists.

Geography of the survey area

The case study considered here is located in the Pamparomas District of the Cordillera Negra
of the north-central highlands of Peru (Fig. 1). Since the demographic collapse of the
sixteenth and seventeenth century this region has been relatively depopulated. This means
that the archaeology is still largely intact. The prehistoric settlements, corrals and other types
of sites that dot the area are visible on the surface and were therefore easy to survey.
The area selected for extensive survey, with special attention paid to the region lying
above 3500m, is a landscape characterized by steep vertical gradients, small highland
plains and short narrow ravines fed by fast, seasonally active, high-energy streams. The
local ecology has consistently been described as marginal and challenging (Custred 1977;
Orlove 1982). Yet studies in the past few decades have reinterpreted this tundra ecotone as
representing a unique floral and faunal biomass that has permitted human adaptations to
high montane environments for the last 12,000 years, with camelid domestication and
pastoralism as a viable economic system since 3500–4000 BC (see Aldenderfer 1998;
Browman 1984; Flannery et al. 1989; Flores Ochoa 1968, 1977; Kuznar 1995).
This area was specifically selected as the northernmost large, uninterrupted expanse
of alpine-tundra pasture, known generically as puna in the South American literature
(Pulgar Vidal 1946; Tosi 1960). These highland herding expanses are particularly

Figure 1 Map of Cordillera Negra indicating survey area.

498 Kevin Lane

favoured by South America’s domesticated camelids, the llama (Lama glama) and alpaca
(L. pacos), as well as their wild relatives, the guanaco (L. guanicöe) and vicuña (Vicugna
vicugna).
Another important factor in the choice of this area is that the region represents the
intersection between the Andean alpine tundra known as puna and what is characterized as
páramo, a more humid, cold, high-altitude grassland that commences in northern Peru and
continues further northwards up into Colombia and Venezuela. This means that the area is
relatively wet; this greater incidence of rainfall, coupled with the local geology, means that
the area has a larger relative number of natural lakes. The prevalence of lakes, especially
across the unglaciated Cordillera Negra, underlies the development of extensive hydraulic
architecture. These features range from the ubiquitous canals and terraces to less commonly
documented water dams and reservoirs. Uniquely, these highlands have also yielded
substantial evidence for the construction of silt dams and reservoirs, technologies that I argue
were used primarily for the purposes of herding, rather than for agriculture (Lane 2005).
The total area surveyed, c. 70km2, covers the headwaters of two tributaries of the
coastal Nepeña River, the Chaclancayo River in the northern valley and the Loco River to
the south. I concentrate in this article on the Chorrillos side-valley, a tributary of the
Chaclancayo River.
This is the first time that this particular area has been subjected to archaeological
investigation; indeed, few studies of this region exist and none have investigated high-
elevation features (but see Crispı́n Balta 2002; Lau 2001 for other recent studies in the
adjacent highlands).

The archaeology of the Chorrillos Valley

Running roughly north east to south west for some 4.25km2 and located above the
modern community of Chorrillos this side valley winds sinuously from a height of 4900m
until its juncture with the Chaclancayo River at 3500m. Survey results indicate water was
managed on a trans-ravine scale whereby dams and reservoirs interlinked in series acted as
‘storage tanks’ for the areas of agro-pastoralism. The valley preserves a large part of its
Prehispanic water-management system in a good state of preservation which makes
inferences on the available evidence that much richer.
The valley includes water dams situated at the upper reaches of the ravine to silt
and water reservoirs at the lower juncture where they appear in close proximity to ancient
agricultural terracing (Cho 8a) and small herder households, or estancias, with associated
corrals as well as medium-sized settlements. Counting the two medium-sized settlements,
Yurakpecho (Cho 3A) and Kunka (Cho 11), plus their outliers, together the area
incorporates 188 households and a total minimum population of 779 people for the valley
during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 900–1480) (see Lane 2005).
The valley-long hydrological system commences at the water dam of Orconcocha
(Cho 6) at 4660m2, actually two dams in sequence, which together account for a lake
surface area of 35,000m2 (Plate 1, Plate 2 and Fig. 2). A sluice and stream connects
Orconcocha with the Yanacocha Lake (Cho 1) at 4550m (Plate 3), a water dam with a lake
surface area of 55,468m2 and an estimated basin volume of 554,680m2 (Freisem 1998).
 Through the looking glass 499

Plate 1 Orconcocha Lake (Cho 6) located at 4660m, viewed from the north east.

Plate 2 Lower dam of Orconcocha (Cho 6A) before cascade down to Yanacocha (Cho 1).

Yanacocha in turn feeds Cocharuri Olerónparitan, also known as Oleron Cocharuri

(Cho-2) at 4200m (Fig. 3). This is a stone structure 80m long with a reinforced wall in two
steps, one 3m and the other 4.5m wide, with a maximum height of 2.5m. This has been
500 Kevin Lane

Figure 2 Aerial photograph and map of the Chorrillos Valley, showing the pacarina of Cerro Rico
(5006m) in the top right-hand corner.

interpreted as a silt catchment dam, which has created a bofedal of 53,125m2 in area. From
here the stream threads for the next 1.75km through a series of small, verdant fields or
pampas – Patoparinan, Putacayoc and Kaucayoc – until it reaches the Chaclancayo
watershed.
These pampas are broken by the well-preserved remains of short horseshoe-shaped silt
reservoirs among the upper pampas and enclosed water reservoirs in the lower lying areas,
especially the terraced zone (see Fig. 4, which details the four topmost sectors of this area,
corresponding to Cho 7 in Fig. 2). In total over eighty such structures have been counted
 Through the looking glass 501

Plate 3 The dammed lake of Yanacocha (Cho 1) viewed from the north west.

in this zone, intentionally positioned either to divert water and silt in the creation of small
bofedales, as in the case of the former, or for the storage of water, as in the case of the
latter feeder channels. The proximity of the abandoned terraces of Llanapaccha (Cho 8B)
substantiates this last hypothesis. The silt reservoir area comprises 150,000m2 of potential
pasture, while the terraced area encompasses 170,000m2 of land that stretches down to
3650m. This is where the modern village of Chorrillos has its main agricultural fields or
charkas, which were possibly cultivated in antiquity. Evidence for this comes from an
Early Intermediate Period Recuay stone-cist offering found by Don Santiago Granados in
his fields just below the terraced area.

Interpreting the evidence from the Chorrillos Valley

The modern community of Chorrillos has access to around 6400ha of land, which includes
the lands up the Chorrillos valley as well as the cultivation slopes that exists on both sides
of the Chaclancayo River. It is conceivable that at the very least this core area was
similarly controlled from the settlements at Yurakpecho (Cho 3A) and Kunka (Cho 11) as
they form a continuous stretch of land. It is also possible that the area of Pukio above the
modern town of Pamparomás was linked to this valley given the canal that existed between
the Chorrillos Valley and Pukio. Yet, since this area has not been extensively surveyed, it
will be discounted for the purposes of this case study.
Taking the latest report on land-use in the Ancash highlands (INRENA 2000) and
extrapolating these results to the Chorrillos Valley it is possible to obtain a good idea of
how land is divided in this area (see Table 1). Currently in the areas considered exclusively
502 Kevin Lane

Figure 3 The silt dam of Oleron Cocharuri (Cho 2).

 Through the looking glass 503

Figure 4 Plan of top four sectors of Cho 7.

Table 1 Table showing modern land use of the Chorrillos Valley, from INRENA (2000)

Type of land use Altitude (m) % of sample Chorrillos Valley (6,400 ha.)

Agricultural cultivation Below 3000 3.25 208.00

Agro-pastoral cultivation/shrubs 3000–3900 58.78 3761.92
Puna grass 3900–4500 25.05 1603.20
Tundra vegetation 4500–4900 12.44 796.16
Bofedal N/A 0.48 30.72
Total 100.00 6400.00

for pasture, that is the area above 3900m, there are 2400 ha of unimproved pastureland
and 30.72ha of bofedal-type vegetation. Using the ratio for unimproved and improved
pasture to domesticated animals suggested by CEDEP (1996a, 1996b, 1996c, 1996d,
1997a, 1997b) and Browman (1990)2 results in a maximum figure of 5500 herd animals for
the whole valley.
The main area of settlement in the valley is located along the ridge of the Yurakpecho-
Shunak massif with a smaller hamlet, Kunka (Cho 11), located alongside the lower
terraced area of Llanapaccha (Cho 8). The numbers of households located above and
below 3900m are 145 and forty-three respectively. The prevalence of settlement above the
elevation of productive cultivation supports the idea of agro-pastoral communities in the
area if it is supposed that communities tend to settle towards their primary production
zones, as suggested by Mayer (1985, 2002).
504 Kevin Lane

One crucial piece of evidence emphasizing agro-pastoralism is technological. The

location of dammed highland lakes such as Orconcocha (Cho 6) and Yanacocha (Cho 1)
does not necessarily imply farmers or herders, but the silt dam of Oleron Cocharuri
(Cho 2) does. Located at 4200m this site is still above the suni cultivation zone and the
area with its eroded scree slopes is unlikely ever to have been used for agriculture. The
silt dam, however, acted as a soil trap and as a small, though important source of
pasture for the animals. The most important area, however, lies below Oleron Cocharuri
(Cho 2), where a set of small interconnected plains drain the waters of the Chorrillos
River downstream towards the Chaclancayo drainage (see Fig. 4). This series of silt
reservoirs, erosion and silt terraces stretches from 4100m down towards 3700m slowly
giving way in the last 50m elevation to a greater number of water reservoirs adjacent to
and feeding the farmed terraces of Llanapaccha (Cho 8) and the fields around Kunka
(Cho 11).
The elevation at which the silt reservoirs end is crucial as it indicates the level at which
a predominantly pastoral economy gives way to a predominantly farming mode of
production. Modern ethnographic evidence typically sets this crossover area at between
4000 and 4200m (Flannery et al. 1989). In this valley the level is set much lower at
between 3700 and 3900m. This fact calls for a reassessment of production in the suni
ecozone.
It is evident from the presence of silt-accumulating hydrological architecture that
herding was conducted at these elevations. The silt reservoirs were probably, like fallow
fields, used during the dry season when the natural pasture had been exhausted. The
nearness of the terraces to this herding area also suggests that fallow production of fodder
took place on these; discarded plant matter such as maize stalks may also have been used
to supplement the diet of the herds during the lean months of the year, as has been
suggested for Chavı́n (Burger and van der Merwe 1990). This is a common practice in
other areas of mountain pastoralism (Rhoades and Thompson 1975).
All the above indicates that the topmost 300m of the suni ecozone were used for herding
and not for farming as is the case today. I argue that this is an expression of agro-
pastoralist political ecology in the area for, although the zone is propitious to the
production of crops, there is a conscious decision to use this elevation for herding; this is
demonstrated by the hydrological architecture.
For the Prehispanic period it is therefore necessary to divide the final agro-pastoralist
cultivation zone (3000–3900m) into a real agro-pastoral landscape in which, conserva-
tively, only the upper third was utilized for pastoralism, as indicated by the prevalence of
pastoral hydrological features, leaving the remaining two-thirds for agriculture. This
presents a very different picture of pastoral production across the valley. Under this new
tally the area comprises 3684.05ha of improved and unimproved pastureland in the
uplands, with a remainder of 2715.95ha of rainfall-fed and irrigated farmland in the lower
valley.
Taking into consideration the artificial bofedales that would have functioned in the
valley, the total area of available bofedal-type vegetation would almost double to 51.03ha.
This area, coupled with the other pastures, would increase herd size capacity in the region
to 8340 animals, an increase of 2840 animals on the present carrying capacity of the
puna area. In the Prehispanic period, the animals per household ratio would divide into
 Through the looking glass 505

forty-six animals per family unit. This compares well with the average herd sizes of
between fifteen and thirty-five animals from the Ayacucho region recorded ethnographi-
cally by Flannery et al. (1989), and the estimates of Lupaca herds, undertaken by Murra
(1965), at between two and 100 animals per household. These figures pertain to an area
traditionally associated with camelid herding in the past. The fact that they are equalled
for the north-central Andes shows that agro-pastoralism was as important as farming for
this area, with stock sizes approaching the totals calculated for the most productive
herding areas of the Andes.
Nor is this pattern unique to this valley: previous calculations for the Huinchos Valley
adjacent to the Inka site of Intiaurán (Co 2A) and the silt dam of Collpacocha (Co 1)
yielded an estimate of 5175 animals (Lane 2000). The total for the Huinchos Valley does
not include the areas on the suni-puna that, similar to those in the Chorrillos Valley, were
probably cultivated for fodder or laid fallow for use by animals. Replication of this system
of pasture improvement is also to be expected from the Rico Valley, which has evidence
of silt terracing, such as in the Chorrillos Valley, stretching over more than 4km.
In between these major valleys are a series of smaller ravines, or quebradas, such as those
of Tunagringo and Takshakunauran, with seasonal streams that provide for smaller areas
of improved pasture. The Tunagringo Ravine commences at the Pampa de Sanigana, an
important area of natural bofedal claimed by the modern communities of Cajabamba Alta,
Putaca and Chorrillos.
The accumulated evidence from the region indicates a pattern of agro-pastoral
adaptations at ease with the use and management of complex hydrological technology
geared towards the maximization of the herding potential of the area.

Conclusion

This case study serves to demonstrate that agro-pastoralism in the past has to be viewed as
beyond the fringe activity to which it has been marginalized in the present. The re-
evaluation of the use of the suni ecozone for herding shows that human decisions can have
a significant impact on the form of land use irrespective of prevailing ecological
conditions. Similarly, the later ‘colonization’ by farming of this area and the subsequent
abandonment of the puna reflect a changing political ecology that emphasizes the reduced
villages and agrocentrism of the colonial and republican periods.
Crucially, it is the existence of so many hydrological features in close association –
dams, reservoirs, canals – that is the important aspect analysed in both the region and in
the individual valleys, such as that of Chorrillos. Throughout the ravines that lead into the
Chaclancayo Valley what is observed is integrated use of water and land, emphasizing a
hybrid economy that incorporates herding and farming across whole minor and major
drainages, a mixed economy that does not subscribe to the modern stark division of
herders and farmers along the limits of present cultivation (c. 3900m).
In the adjacent Loco Valley the picture is somewhat different. Here the topography does
not provide the same extent of area for pasture as the wider Chaclancayo Valley.
Nevertheless, the existence of old corrals and estancias located above 3700m, most of
them located close to water dams, such as Alalakmachay (Pc 11) and Estanque (Ti 1),
506 Kevin Lane

does hint at some degree of pastoral activity. Given the geographical characteristics of this
valley, V-shaped rather than U-shaped, it is likely that terrace farming formed an
important part of economic production in it and that the pastoral element in this
community was somewhat lower than in the larger Chaclancayo Valley.
In the north-central Andes, the political strength and economic power of Prehispanic
agro-pastoralist groups has been mentioned by ethnohistorians as far south as Canta in
the District of Lima (Rostworowski 1988) and has been partially studied for the
Huamachuco area (Topic and Topic 1983). What these new data suggest is that agro-
pastoralism was a crucial element of community life among the mixed farmer-herder
groups of the study region. That this is not an incident isolated to just the case study of
the Chorrillos Valley, but is repeated throughout the study area, suggests that agro-
pastoralism was probably important throughout the Cordillera Negra.
Importantly, this new examination of agro-pastoral groups places them at the centre of
power and decision making within mixed herder-farmer communities. The larger
populations are concentrated towards the highest parts of the cordilleras, implying
political and social control by agro-pastoral groups ensconced at those heights. These
communities controlled scarce water resources and dictated economic production, pushing
the pastoralist boundary downwards towards the suni area. The scattered nature of the
settlement pattern should not blind us to the fact that these herders built and maintained
large and intricate hydraulic systems that provided pasture and water in an otherwise
water-poor environment.
I suggest that hydrological systems are a medium from which to initiate an analysis of
community complexity. Moving away from the more extreme implications of Wittfogel’s
(1957) and Steward’s (1955) ideas about irrigation and civilization at the state level, their
work still reveals the importance held by water for the formation and reproduction of
communities. Although complex hydrological architecture does not preclude state
formation, it does involve significant communal organization and investment, as has been
revealed for both Balinese ‘water temples’ (Lansing 1987) and irrigation canals in
Mesoamerica (Hunt and Hunt 1976). Large, internally articulated and elaborate systems
of local hydrological architecture, such as the ones studied here, can act as a catalyst for
varied social dynamics such as community labour organization, localized religious practice
and the emergence of a distinct group of water overseers, much in the same line as the
modern water mayor, or varayoc, of the Cabanaconde community of the Colca Valley
(Gelles 2000).
Given that this was the case in the past, and that it involved primarily agro-pastoralist
communities, the role of herding within the Prehispanic Andes needs to be reassessed. It
becomes necessary to analyse Andean archaeology from the perspective of the potential
significance of agro-pastoral economic activity for adaptation, landscape and politics in
the past. It is impossible to consider the Andean highlands without reflecting on the role of
herding not as a marginal pursuit but rather as an integral element of Andean life. Neither
landscape nor society can be explained without recourse to the importance of herding
within the economy, a fact reinforced by Andean cosmology and myths recounting the
deeds of herder deities and communities (Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz 1990). If we continue
to neglect pastoralism, we perpetuate agro-centric perspectives that ignore the puna, the
communities that settled it, and the herds that grazed it.
 Through the looking glass 507

Acknowledgements

The fieldwork for this article was made possible by generous sponsorship from the
Wingate Trust, the Cambridge European Trust, Trinity Hall – Cambridge and ancillary
funds from the University of Cambridge. This study in the Cordillera Negra was
conducted under INC permit C/DGPA-0174-2002.

University of Manchester

Notes

1 Unless otherwise stated, the chronology used in this article is based on the periodization
as originally elucidated by Rowe (1962) and not on radiocarbon dates. For a more in-
depth discussion of the methodology behind the dating of the sites and material refer to
Lane (2005).
2 CEDEP (1996a, 1996b, 1996c, 1996d, 1997a, 1997b) has calculated 2.25 animals per
hectare of unimproved pasture, while Browman (1990) has calculated 3.25 animals per
hectare of improved pasture.

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Kevin Lane completed a PhD in Andean archaeology at the University of Cambridge in

2005. He has worked extensively on late Prehispanic sites in the north-central Andes, Peru
and north-west Argentina. He is interested in examining the part played by agro-
pastoralism in the rise of Andean civilization, especially its role in shaping society and
technology. He is currently employed as a lecturer at the University of Manchester.