The Development and Role of Sunken Field Agriculture on the Peruvian Coast

Abstract

In a most improbable area for agricultural development, pre-Hispanic peoples on the desert coast of Peru dug below the surface sand to reach a moist zone for crop growing. A wide range of crops was produced including maize, beans, gourds, roots and fruit crops, cotton and reeds. It is also likely xhatquinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) was grown. In view of the richness of offshore resources, it seems likely that coastal agriculture, particularly that of sunken fields, would originally have developed subsidiary to a dependence on fishing. Although prone to salinisation, the general success of these plots probably derived from their capability of all year round production when compared with systems dependent on floodwater. Their viability must also have owed much to the high frequency of fogs which greatly reduce annual evapotranspiration and also to the particle size of the soils. Sunken fields appear to have developed relatively late in the pre-Hispanic sequence, probably commencing with a simple layout which became more complex as watertables fell. The fields have been in use for more than a thousand years, being exploited actively in the Chimu and Inca periods.