Economic Directness in the Western Andes

A New Model of Socioeconomic Organization for the Paracas Culture in the First Millennium BC

Bibliographic Data

ID4780288
AuthorsC Mäder (0000-0001-9372-6721), Markus Reindel (0000-0003-1223-304X), Johny Isla (0000-0001-6164-8124)
Year2023
Volume34
Issue2
Pages385-403
Publication date2023-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American Antiquity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1045-6635 • E-ISSN: 2325-5080
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/laq.2022.40
OpenAlexW4280569298
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited62

Economic directness is a new model of socioeconomic organization for the Paracas culture (800-200 BC) in southern Peru, with wider implications for economic theory of the prehispanic Andean past. Using an archaeoeconomic approach to analyze settlement patterns, obsidian artifacts, malacological material, and camelid skeletal remains, this study reconstructs the Paracas economy by using primary archaeological data from the northern Nasca Drainage. Its results force reconsideration of existing socioeconomic models for the ancient Andes such as verticality, circuit mobility, llama caravan mobility, transhumance, and market concepts. Whereas components typical of these models are often absent in the case of the Paracas economy, our new proposal of economic directness integrates their relevant aspects. Economic directness is defined essentially by direct access to important resources from diverse ecological tiers, direct and down-the-line exchanges, reduced transaction costs, llama caravan transport, unbalanced commodity flows across the western Andes, and forces of supply and demand with major consumption on the coast. These features formed under conditions of population growth, generating a continuous and dense settlement pattern from the Pacific coast to the highland puna zone

Archaeology · Commodity · Consumption (sociology · Database · Database transaction · Economics · Economy · Geography · Population · Settlement (finance · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Computer Science · Latin American history and culture · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Demography

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