Moche Irrigation and Food Production

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the Moche political organizations and their key attributes. It specifically focuses on their irrigation systems and how they provided leaders with the opportunity to expand their political power base and economy. The paper also looks at how expansion of political control over food production and distribution may have led to an increased reliance on agricultural and terrestrial faunal resources in later periods.

From the Paper:

"If it is assumed that "in societies organized around a regional political economy, there is differential access to goods, wealth, power and the means of production" (Gumerman 1997), it can probably also be assumed that high-ranking individuals controlled the degree and social organization of labor, tribute, redistribution and trade of foods, and possibly, as Goody (1982) notes, the technology, land, and water required for producing or procuring foods. In addition, the elite should have had the greatest degree of food choice and set themselves apart symbolically by consuming foods valued either for ideological reasons or for rarity. An increased dietary divergence between class groups might even offer indirect evidence of a foundation for political unrest. (Christine White, et. al, 2001)"

Sample of Sources Used:

• Barth, Fredrik 1969 Introduction. In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, edited by Fredrik Barth, pp. 9-38. Little, Brown and Co., Boston.
• Bawden, Garth 1996 The Moche. Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Billman, Brian R. 1996 The Evolution of Prehistoric Political Organizations in the Moche Valley, Peru. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department ofAnthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara. 2002. Irrigation and the Origins of the Southern Moche State on the North Coast of Peru. Latin American Antiquity. 13(4), pp 371-400.
• Blanton, R. E., G. M. Feinman, S. A. Kowalewski, and P. N. Peregrine 1996 A Dual-Processual Theory for the Evolution of Mesoamerican Civilization. Current Anthropology 37: 1-14.
• Bourget, S. 2000 Daily Life in a Palace: Recent Archaeological Investigations at Huancaco, Viru Valley, Peru. Draft for a Presentation a The AAA, Berkeley, California

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