TY - JOUR
T1 - Fishing and environmental change during the emergence of social complexity in the Lake Titicaca Basin
AU - Capriles, José M.
AU - Moore, Katherine M.
AU - Domic, Alejandra I.
AU - Hastorf, Christine A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Our fieldwork research in Bolivia has been supported by the Bolivian Ministry of Cultures, the National Science Foundation (BCS Archaeology 0234011), the local communities of the Taraco Peninsula, and our respective research institutions. All necessary permits were obtained for the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations. We thank the members of the Taraco Archaeological Project especially Matthew Bandy, Maria Bruno, Ruth Fontenla, Eduardo Machicado, Melanie Miller, Andrew Roddick, Lee Steadman, and William Whitehead for discussing with us some of the ideas presented in this paper. We also thank Mark Abbott for supplying the raw lake-level data used to draft Fig. 6 as well as Marc Bermann, David Browman, Jon Erlandson, Fiona Marshall, Velia Mendoza, John O’Shea, Calogero Santoro, and an anonymous reviewer for insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
PY - 2014/6
Y1 - 2014/6
N2 - The Lake Titicaca Basin is one of the regions in the world where both primary village and state formation occurred in prehistory. Although agriculture has been discussed as the central engine fueling these processes, fish and other aquatic resources were significant but little-understood components of the region's ancient economy. In this paper, we use zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains from 367 flotation samples recovered from five archaeological sites to discuss the interplay between fishing, environmental change, and the emergence of sociopolitical complexity in the Taraco Peninsula of Lake Titicaca. Our results suggest that fishing comprised a significant component of the local inhabitants' diet between 1500 BC and 1100 AD. The intensity of fish procurement, however, varied through time and independently of both climatic and population change. We interpret variation in fish consumption through time as a product of group and individual decisions to optimize resource use in a context of dynamic environmental and sociopolitical variability.
AB - The Lake Titicaca Basin is one of the regions in the world where both primary village and state formation occurred in prehistory. Although agriculture has been discussed as the central engine fueling these processes, fish and other aquatic resources were significant but little-understood components of the region's ancient economy. In this paper, we use zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains from 367 flotation samples recovered from five archaeological sites to discuss the interplay between fishing, environmental change, and the emergence of sociopolitical complexity in the Taraco Peninsula of Lake Titicaca. Our results suggest that fishing comprised a significant component of the local inhabitants' diet between 1500 BC and 1100 AD. The intensity of fish procurement, however, varied through time and independently of both climatic and population change. We interpret variation in fish consumption through time as a product of group and individual decisions to optimize resource use in a context of dynamic environmental and sociopolitical variability.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897459787&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84897459787&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jaa.2014.02.001
DO - 10.1016/j.jaa.2014.02.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84897459787
SN - 0278-4165
VL - 34
SP - 66
EP - 77
JO - Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
JF - Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
IS - 1
ER -