Reconstructing an Engineered Environment in the Central Andes: Landscape Geoarchaeology at Chavín de Huántar, Peru

Daniel A. Contreras, Stanford University

Abstract

Chavín de Huántar, a Formative Period ceremonial center in the Peruvian Central Andes, has been a focus of archaeological research for more than 70 years. Nevertheless, I argue, its extent and character remain incompletely understood. This is a result of a highly active geologic environment, which both influenced human–environment interactions in Chavín’s prehistory and created a substantial taphonomic challenge to archaeological interpretation. The integration of archaeological and geologic data in a site GIS has been used to reconstruct a pre-Chavín landscape and to estimate the scale of geomorphic and anthropogenic landscape change at Chavín. That reconstruction is used to examine the dynamic and reciprocal human–environment relationsits implications for both landscape and political processes at Chavín.

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