| Major changes in both social systems and agrarian technology in the Andes are predicated on disaster-induced restructuring events. These catastrophic events result from the impact of natural and cultural hazards of a significant magnitude on vulnerable populations. Such crises force people to re-evaluate the economic foundations of their subsistence base and to reconsider the way in which they interpret the world. As such, they act as catalysts of major change in the ways societies provide for their needs and express their interpretation of meaning in material form.;The research area for evaluating the hypothesis of a disaster-induced evolutionary sequence is the Moquegua Valley of Southern Peru. Located at 17 degrees South latitude and 71 degrees West longitude, the Moquegua drainage resides in the arid South-Central Andean sierra. Agriculture is the source of life, and it can only thrive through the use of irrigation technology. Events which threaten the stability of that economic base threaten the survival of the populations that inhabit the Moquegua sierra. Over the past 1500 years, catastrophic events have resulted in major transformations in cultural influence and agrarian technology between the several eras of Moquegua Prehistory. These eras include the Tiwanaku Omo Phase (500-650 A. D.), Imperial Wari (650-750 A. D.), Tiwanaku Chen Chen (750-950 A. D.), Tumilaca (950-1100 A. D.), Chiribaya (1100-1250 A. D.), Estuquina (1250-1450 A. D.), Inka (1450-1532 A. D.), and Colonial (1532-1821 A. D.). These phases are named after cultural groups within the valley, but do not necessarily represent the longevity of a particular culture. Rather, they represent time periods in which a particular cultural group exerted more profound influence on economic organization and ideological interpretation over a majority of the valley.;Implicated in the changes which occur between these phases are natural hazards such as drought, El Nino coastal flooding, and tectonic activity and social hazards such as internal conflict and imperial conquest. Both technological and social vulnerability to these hazards were major contributors to the transformations in agrarian land use and cultural influence which constitute these different epochs. The dynamic Andean social and natural environment has played a pivotal role in the development of agriculture and the evolution of society. |
