Understanding the relationship between agricultural intensification and ancient sociopolitical complexity is a question that has long resonated with archaeological research interests. This dissertation explores the dynamics of food production, migration, and sociopolitical change in relation to the consolidation of the complex, hierarchically organized Southern Moche polity of north coastal Peru during the Early Intermediate Period, or EIP (400 B.C. – A.D. 800). I incorporate archaeobotanical, environmental, and ethnohistorical evidence to address changes in food production, processing, and consumption over five cultural horizons to critically re-evaluate existing models of Moche sociopolitical development, with a bottom-up perspective of the laborers in rural households whose agricultural production supported the growth and florescence of this complex society.
A diachronic comparison of paleoethnobotanical data sampled from five EIP habitation sites in the Moche Valley reveals that dramatic increases in agricultural production by coastal (costeño) and highland (serrano) groups occurred prior to the expansion of the Moche state in the A.D. 300s. The plant data suggest that complex political dynamics involving tribute relationships and suprahousehold commensal events were already in place during the Gallinazo phase (A.D. 1-200). Highland and coastal peoples likely established mutually beneficial relationships that revolved around food and farming during this period, including fiestas, religious gatherings, and work parties (masa). I argue that Moche leaders built upon existing political institutions in which rural households were already engaged in intensive agricultural production, which included maize but also other field cultigens and tree crops.
The intensification of food-processing demands over time also suggests that changes in women’s social status may have been tied to increases in processing demands, as women were subjected to new labor increases, time constraints, and scheduling conflicts. Detailed intrasite spatial analysis of a highland colony site reveals that women prepared food in private, behind-the-scenes contexts for supra-household events and public displays that were performed on patio terraces at high status compounds. These women may have prepared food for these public events totally apart from, and without being included, in such events. I interpret the restriction of visibility, with women processing maize and other foodstuffs out of view behind kitchen walls, as part of increased gender segregation that often accompanies processes like agricultural intensification.
The micro-scale approach employed in this study departs from the current, prevailing studies of political, economic, and ideological phenomena at larger ceremonial centers on the Peruvian north coast. This project reveals how a seemingly mundane category of archaeological data (archaeobotanical data) can shed light on myriad social processes related to the negotiation of ethnic identities, gender relations, and domestic labor more broadly, and reframe our understandings of Moche sociopolitical development specifically.
