Andean Past Volume 9 Article 15 11-1-2009 Climate, Agricultural Strategies, and Sustainability in the Precolumbian Andes Charles Ortloff
[email protected] Michael E. Moseley University of Florida,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/andean_past Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, Natural Resource Economics Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, Sustainability Commons, and the Water Resource Management Commons Recommended Citation Ortloff, Charles and Moseley, Michael E. (2009) "Climate, Agricultural Strategies, and Sustainability in the Precolumbian Andes," Andean Past: Vol. 9 , Article 15. Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/andean_past/vol9/iss1/15 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Andean Past by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CLIMATE, AGRICULTURAL STATEGIES, AND SUSTAINABILITY IN THE PRECOLUMBIAN ANDES CHARLES R. ORTLOFF University of Chicago and MICHAEL E. MOSELEY University of Florida INTRODUCTION allowed each society to design and manage complex water supply networks and to adapt Throughout ancient South America, mil- them as climate changed. While shifts to marine lions of hectares of abandoned farmland attest resources, pastoralism, and trade may have that much more terrain was cultivated in mitigated declines in agricultural production, precolumbian times than at present. For Peru damage to the sustainability of the main agricul- alone, the millions of hectares of abandoned tural system often led to societal changes and/or agricultural land show that in some regions 30 additional modifications to those systems.