The origins and development of complex prehispanic society in the Lower Santa Valley, Peru: Implications for theories of state origins

Abstract

A major issue in attempts to construct cross-culturally valid theories of state origins is the relative roles of irrigation agriculture, population growth, and warfare in the rise of complex society. Recently, data from the coast of Peru has provided the stimulus for the formulation of the “coercive theory” of state origins. This theory proposes that state formation in circumscribed environments was the result of population pressure, internecine (local level) warfare, and the incorporation of defeated groups into ever larger, victorious polities. Yet, although the pioneering study of settlement patterns was carried out in Virú Valley, the lack of a comprehensive regional study of the development of prehispanic subsistence-settlement systems in any Peruvian coastal valley meant that the “coercive theory” rested on a precarious data base. Selected results of an extensive and systematic survey carried out in 1979–1980 in the Lower Santa Valley, an area only partly studied prior to our research but long famous for its large number of major prehispanic walls and fortresses, are discussed. Following a discussion of the problem, research methods and data for the early periods leading to state formation are outlined. Analysis of settlement patterns, maize-based carrying capacity, and settlement-cluster ceramic assemblages is then carried out to suggest refutation of the “coercive” model and acceptance of an alternative model of multivariate causality. External, or intervalley, warfare is shown to have been an important socioenvironmental stress leading to sociocultural complexity not only in Santa, but probably in adjacent valleys as well.