Was Geography the Destiny?
The Andes stands like a high fortification along the western coastline of South America. This longest mountain range in the world extends 7,000 kilometers from Colombia to Chile. It is so high that the two sides of the mountains stand in stark contrast. On its eastern side lies the vast Amazonia, 7 million square kilometers of the flat basin covered with forests and crisscrossed by the hundreds of tributaries of the Amazon River. Originating in the Andes, these rivers carry more water than the combined flows of the world’s next five largest river systems. They deposit fertile silt on the riverbanks where it is easy to grow food. The forest is a plentiful source of game animals, and the rivers abound in fish. No wonder many indigenous societies have made Amazonia their home. Some, like the Tsimane and the Yanomamo, are horticulturists, while many are hunter-gatherers. Evidence shows that some complex societies emerged along major riverbanks, but all collapsed before reaching anything close to state societies.
The western side of the mountain range has strikingly different climatic conditions. It is dry and almost barren. Rainfall is almost absent except at very high altitudes. The only water sources are the rain and melting ice from the mountain peaks, which trickle through the few valley streams that feed several alpine lakes. Lake Titicaca is the largest among them, located on a plateau 12,600 feet above sea level. The lakes and streams support pockets of vegetation and animal life in an otherwise bleak landscape. At high altitudes, the air is thin, and the temperature falls below freezing in winter, making cultivation difficult. On top of these regular climatic features, the region also periodically faces a disruptive climatic event known as the El Nino phenomenon, which consists of a warming period followed by a cooling period that can be very severe at times. Despite such challenges, the Andean highlands were one of the earliest places to domesticate crops, such as potatoes, tomatoes, quinoa, and several varieties of beans. The region also produced one of the six independent civilizations.
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The western flank of the Andes challenges the common wisdom that ancient civilizations arose only in great river basins, where highly productive agriculture could support large-scale societies. At the time of Spanish arrival, a large political society—the Inca Empire—with its capital (Cusco) at 3,399 meters above sea level flourished along the length of the Andes. The empire extended 5,500 kilometers from north to south. Its population was close to 10 million. The history of complex societies in the Andes dates back before 3000 BCE and is almost as old as the Indus and the Chinese civilizations.
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The rise of these societies happened first in the coastal region of northwestern Peru. The people who lived there were farmers. Today, this area is like a desert, but it had a more supportive climate 5 thousand years ago. Rivers like the Supe carried water from the mountains through narrow valleys near the coast. This water could be taken to crop fields by digging canals. The valley inhabitants cultivated beans, gourds, squash, and chilis, besides plenty of guavas, which seem to have been a staple food.[i] Some maize was also grown but was not yet an important crop. The most curious aspect of ancient Andean agriculture was that its main crop was a non-food plant—cotton. Fishing nets were made from cotton and traded for fish from coastal villages. Fish was an essential component of the local diet. The region also exported other items, extending its trade links over a vast territory.
Everything we know about early Andean societies comes from archaeological excavations because the relentless onslaught of the natural elements over thousands of years turned all signs of this past culture into ruins. A few barren mounds still standing on the landscape drew the attention of local residents. Tipped by them, the Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady Solis and her team began excavation in the 1980s. The site they chose is located about 23 km upstream from the mouth of the Supe River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean.
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Commonly referred to as Caral-Supe, named after a large village and the river, the archaeological site extends over 110 hectares. The site’s highlight is the ceremonial area, which contains 3 sunken circular plazas and 6 large pyramidal mounds or platforms. The largest of the mounds is 18 meters or 60 feet high, and its base measures 150 meters in length and 100 meters in width. These structures required considerable investments in labor and time. The only possible use for these structures was ceremonial, most likely religious. The architecture seems to reflect the geographical features of the area: valleys surrounded by mountains. The Caral-Supe society probably worshipped the spirits (or gods) of the mountains and other natural elements.
Since the discovery of Caral-Supe, nearly a dozen other sites, all bearing the marks of the same culture, have been found in the region. They all had similar economic structures: trading cotton for fish between inland and coastal settlements. This earliest known complex society of the Andes is now known as the Norte Chico culture. This culture thrived for over one thousand years before it collapsed, possibly due to a climatic disaster. The achievements of the Norte Chico society look particularly impressive given that its people had not yet invented pottery. This society was technically comparable to the Near Eastern village societies of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period, but they were far ahead in terms of social and political development. Their settlements were many times larger than usual pre-pottery villages in the Near East. Caral, the largest village, had an estimated population of about 3,000. Besides, it likely had economic and political influence over the nearby coastal fishing hamlets. Such a society could not have been egalitarian like those in Amazonia. It was likely a political society with ruling authorities. Ruth Shady Solis thinks that this society had a rudimentary class structure.
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The sight of massive structures and the idea of politically organized societies living in such a barren landscape are mindboggling. Why did such societies not evolve in Amazonia, where life was less challenging? The anthropologist Robert Carneiro came up with an explanation. In an article written for Science magazine in 1970, Carneiro found the reason in geography. “Looking first at the Amazon basin”, he wrote, “we see that agricultural villages there were numerous but widely dispersed. Even in areas with relatively dense clustering, like the Upper Xingu basin, villages were at least 10 or 15 miles apart.” Writing about coastal Peru, he noted, “Instead of being scattered over a vast expanse of the rain forest as they were in Amazonia, villages here were confined to some 78 short and narrow valleys. Each of these valleys, moreover, was backed by the mountains, fronted by the sea, and flanked on either side by a desert as dry as any in the world. Nowhere else, perhaps, can one find agricultural valleys more sharply circumscribed than these.”[ii]
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The key word in this theory is circumscribed—meaning “surrounded and unable to move out.” The underlying assumption is that a growing population normally wants to spread out unless geographical or other barriers constrain their movement. As Carneiro saw, the inhabitants of the Norte Chico societies were faced with two stark choices as their population increased: either (1) face food crises and descend into chaos and violence, or (2) organize, innovate, and increase food production. The people of Norte Chico societies made the second choice and dealt with population growth without suffering chaos and social breakdown. Their largest village grew to about 20 times the size of a horticultural settlement on the Amazonian side. They did not (and might not have been able to) reach the stage of a full-fledged state society, but they were clearly on that trajectory.
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End Notes:
[i] Michael A. Malpass; Ancient People of the Andes; Cornell University Press, May 27, 2016
[ii] Robert L. Carneiro; “A Theory of the Origin of the State”; Science, 21 August 1970, Vol. 169, 733-738.