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Building Community in Coastal Deserts: Perspectives from Western South America 

 

GABRIEL PRIETO and DANIEL H. SANDWEISS, eds. 2019. Maritime Communities of the 
Ancient Andes. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 462 pp., ISBN 13: 9780813066141 

 

Keywords: Archaeology, Peru, Andes, Coast, Maritime 

 

Michael Moseley emphasized the importance of maritime resources to the development of social 

complexity in the Andean region in his theory articulated in his Maritime Foundations of Andean 

Civilization (1975), which became a central (and controversial) text in the field. This volume 

builds on his and others’ foundational work and asks, “how did ancient Andean coastal 

communities build themselves, and their identities, around their proximity to the Pacific Ocean”?  

Maritime Communities of the Ancient Andes, edited by Gabriel Prieto and Daniel Sandweiss, is 

based on a session conducted at the 2014 Society for American Archaeology annual meeting. The 

book contains an introductory chapter followed by 14 chapters in four sections organized by time 

interval, beginning with the first human occupations of the Pacific littoral of western South 

America and culminating in the 17th century CE colonial period.  

The introduction orients the reader around the goals, themes, and contents of the volume well. The 

editors trace the history of coastal research in Andean archaeology, including questions regarding 

the timing of human migration into the region, human-environment interactions, the emergence of 

economic specialization, and the development of social complexity from the exploitation of 

abundant marine resources. They compare these trends with new research, including the rest of the 

volume, which seeks to delve into more complex perspectives on the development and history of 

Andean Maritime Communities (AMCs). They emphasize a key issue: the lack of a clear 



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delineation between fishing and farming, and that the two economic practices combined were 

likely what led to social complexity along the Andean coast.  

Section I focuses on early AMCs spanning the period 13,000-5,500 BP. The first two chapters 

examine what is now northern Chile and far southern Peru, specifically the Atacama Desert. In 

Chapter 2, Santoro et al. emphasize that inland communities become sources of agricultural goods 

unavailable to AMCs along the arid coast in trade networks that spanned both time and space. In 

Chapter 3, Salazar et al. suggest that members of AMCs gained social capital via travel to highland 

areas for lithic resources, which alongside other specialized skills became the basis for increased 

social complexity, semi-sedentary behavior, and territoriality. In Chapter 4, Dillehay discusses 

northern Peru, specifically the site of Huaca Prieta in the Chicama Valley. Examining ~9,000 years 

of human occupation (~12,500 cal. BP – 3,800 cal BP), Dillehay summarizes previous research 

and emphasizes the importance of both marine and terrestrial resources and exchange systems in 

the development of social complexity. 

Section II examines the emergence of more complex social systems 5,500 - 2,500 BP. In Chapter 

5, Creamer and Haas discuss developments in the Norte Chico, a region of north-central Peru 

spanning four valleys, from 3,000 - 1,800 BCE. Creamer and Haas present evidence for economic 

and ideological power as drivers of social complexity, noting that they have not found evidence 

for state-sponsored violence in the preceramic Norte Chico. In Chapter 6, Helmer shifts the focus 

north to the Nepeña Valley, discussing AMCs and early urbanization, specifically the Early 

Horizon (900 - 200 BCE) settlement of Samanco. Helmer notes that despite intensified irrigation 

agriculture, marine resources from settlements like Samanco played a key role in the economy of 

the Nepeña Valley during this period, especially in trade with inland communities. Chicoine et al. 

continue the discussion on the Nepeña Valley in Chapter 7 with an examination of the faunal 

remains recovered from Caylán, the largest Early Horizon center in the lower Nepeña Valley. 

Though ~15 km inland, Chicoine et al. note that marine fauna were key to the subsistence of 

Caylán’s residents. Prieto moves the discussion north in Chapter 8, discussing evidence for AMCs 

conducting subsistence agriculture during the Initial Period (1,800 - 900 BCE) at the site of 

Gramalote. Drawing together multiple lines of evidence Prieto concludes that fisherfolk in the 

lower Moche Valley were likely cultivating plants in household plots for their consumption and 

use in fishing technologies. Sutter and Prieto continue discussing Gramalote in Chapter 9, 



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examining bioarcheological data for evidence of ethnic identities unique to AMCs. Using 

biodistance analysis, which allows researchers to assess the genetic relationship between 

individuals based on dental morphology, Sutter and Prieto find that the residents of Gramalote 

were not genetically isolated, but regularly intermarried with inland agropastoralists in the Moche 

Valley.  

Section III discusses the role of AMCs in larger social networks and organizations 2,500 - 600 BP. 

In Chapter 10, Billman et al. examine household life at Cerro la Virgen, a town belonging to the 

Chimu empire and located close to the capitol city of Chan Chan in the Moche Valley. Combining 

faunal, botanical, and artifact analysis, they find no specific economic focus within the house 

compounds examined, suggesting that the settlement was likely self-sufficient rather than a 

specialized production center supplying Chan Chan. They note that the agricultural activities 

conducted in the pampa would have required extensive irrigation provided by the Chimu state, and 

residents may have “paid” tribute in the form of agricultural products or textiles for usufruct rights 

to irrigation. Goepfert et al. bring us to the far north of Peru in Chapter 11, providing new data 

about the Early Initial Period (200 BCE-600 CE) to Middle Horizon (600 – 1,000 CE) transition 

in the Sechura Desert. They report the discovery of a resource processing area rich in marine 

animal remains, which they suggest was likely part of an extraction and preparation network for 

export to settlements associated with the Moche culture. In Chapter 12, Stothert et al. discuss 

increasing social complexity and economic specialization and intensification in coastal Ecuador 

from 700 – 1,500 CE. They argue against the hypothesis that increased demand for Spondylus shell 

from northern Peru drove social complexity, noting such demand occurred alongside other cultural 

developments in Ecuador that led to a unique form of decentralized chieftainship. 

Section IV completes the volume by examining ethnohistoric and historic data regarding AMCs 

from 600 - 300 BP, or the spread of the Inka empire through the early Spanish colonial period. In 

Chapter 13 Marcus et al. discuss how zooarchaeological evidence from the site of Cerro Azul in 

southern Peru could reflect El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) activity. Their results are 

inconclusive, but they note that other studies successfully used the biogeography of various species 

recovered from archaeological contexts to reconstruct shifts in ENSO. Van Valkenburgh et al. 

bring the discussion back to northern Peru in Chapter 15, focusing on evidence for maritime 

subsistence strategies at the late Prehispanic to Colonial period settlement of Carrizales in the Zaña 



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Valley. They contend that leaders of AMCs claimed identity as exclusively extractors of marine 

resources to avoid tribute burdens from Spanish colonial authorities, noting that species richness 

in both faunal and botanical remains increased during the colonial period and included a wide 

variety of terrestrial organisms. In the final chapter, Susan Ramírez reexamines documentary 

evidence for specialized fishing communities in the early Colonial Period. She notes that while 

there is extensive documentary evidence for AMC specialization, there is also evidence for their 

interdependence with agricultural communities and fluidity of economic identity.  

This volume is a comprehensive collection of recent scholarship on coastal life in prehispanic 

western South America, and as such is a vital resource for anyone looking to increase their 

knowledge on the subject. While likely too advanced for introductory archaeology courses, this 

text would be excellent for use in advanced regional courses and discussions on broader topics 

such as human-environment interactions or the development of social complexity.  

 

Works Cited: 

Moseley, M. E. (1975). The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization. Menlo Park: 

Cummings Publishing Company. 

 

Jacob Warner is a PhD candidate in the department of Geography and Anthropology at 

Louisiana State University. He specializes primarily in reconstructing past climates and 

environments from carbonate geochemistry, but also has interests in zooarchaeology, coastal 

adaptations, and climate change, specifically in terms of Andean prehistory. 

 

 

© 2021 Jacob Warner 

 


