Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Impact of the Miraflores El Niño Flood on the Chiribaya of Far Southern Peru

The goal of this project is to study the impact of a coastal drought and a subsequent flood caused by the climatic anomaly known as ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) in a coastal region. This project reconstructs both the cultural and environmental history at a coastal archaeological site and then place the site within the broader archaeological history of the region. In this region a prolonged drought followed by catastrophic flooding caused the abandonment and reduction of coastal populations. To date, research on this region has focused on societal collapse due to environmental change. In contrast, this project acknowledges the challenges associated with climatic changes, while also emphasizing the ingenuity of people in unpredictable landscapes. Archaeology is particularly well placed to continue research on this drought and flood event, while putting it within the broader context of cultural adaptation and change. The project provides localized environmental data on what coastal peoples experienced over a ca. 300 year period. Additionally, it adds to the archaeological knowledge of landscape use and reuse in an area with an extended period of human history. The project focuses on professionalization and training of members of an international research team that will further disseminate their research on these topics. This project focuses on a period of major environmental and cultural changes. Though research has been done at other sites to understand the impact of the coastal drought and flood, this project is the first regional scale analysis of this period of regional prehistory. Specifically, the research addresses two main questions: How did coastal peoples adapt to unpredictable climate conditions? And what was the collective impact of the drought and El Niño floods on the coast? To answer these questions the research team uses a combination of archaeological, geological, and biological research methods. The researcher leads a team of archaeologists, geoarchaeologists, and palynologists (pollen analysts) to conduct archaeological excavations, artifact analysis, sediment sampling and analysis, and pollen sampling and analysis. These interdisciplinary researchers address the convergence of environmental and human forces to understand agricultural and irrigational adaptations that allowed people to be resilient following these climate disasters. This team will develop a local record of environmental change that will be accessible to others conducting climate change research in multiple arid environments. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.