Subsistence strategies in the Supe Valley of the Peruvian Central coast during the Complex Preceramic and Initial Periods

This dissertation is focused on the analysis of socio-economic development and resource utilization in the Peruvian Central coast during the later part of Preceramic (Complex Preceramic) and Initial Periods, with particular emphasis on the relative importance of marine versus agricultural resources in the development of coastal societies, and the relationship between intensification of the subsistence economy and development of social complexity. The thesis introduces and implements a series of mathematical models known as integer programs which investigate the subsistence behavior of the Complex Preceramic and Initial Periods populations inhabiting the Supe Valley.;The thesis provides a reconstruction of the climatic conditions and ecological zonation within the Supe Valley, and provides a detailed analysis of the subsistence strategies that could have been pursued within each ecozone, their yields, costs, labor requirements, and the associated risks.;This issue of subsistence change is investigated within the formal framework of an integer programming model. To capture the dynamic, time-variant nature of the complex interactions between population changes and resource exploitation in the ecological environment, the integer programming models are implemented in a disaggregate manner by partitioning the situation spatially as well temporally. The basic temporal disaggregation involves a series of three distinct chronological periods (Pre-Agriculture, Incipient Agriculture, and Early Agriculture periods), and each of these is spatially disaggregated for two major ecozones of the Supe Valley (Coastal and Inland).;The maritime hypothesis is not supported by any quantitative estimates of resource availability, nor by the predictions of the subsistence model. Furthermore, the evolutionary sequence that emerges from the model indicates that the foundations of Andean complex societies are based on use of monte rather than marine resources. According to the model, maritime resources were never the exclusive basis for human subsistence, and were exploited only in the absence of adequate terrestrial foods. The costal location of sites, which was beneficial during the earliest period of human habitation (Pre-Agriculture Period), proved to be comparatively disadvantageous when the societies grew more complex (Incipient Agriculture and Early Agriculture).