Late pre-Hispanic fog oasis settlements and long-term human occupation on the Peruvian central coast from satellite imagery

Fog oases (lomas) present pockets of verdant vegetation within the arid coastal desert of Andean South America and archaeological excavation within some of the oases has revealed a long history of human exploitation of these landscapes. Yet lomas settlements are under-represented in archaeological d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antiquity 2024-02, Vol.98 (397), p.211-228
Main Authors: Marcone, Giancarlo, Huertas, Geraldine, Zimmer-Dauphinee, James, Van Valkenburgh, Parker, Moat, Justin, Wernke, Steven A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropological research
Archaeology
Coasts
Ecosystems
Excavation
Exploitation
Flowers & plants
Fog
Human influences
Human settlements
Humidity
Imagery
Land settlement
Landscape
Long term
Mapping
Oases
Satellites
Special section: GeoPACHA
Vegetation
Vegetation zones
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Summary:Fog oases (lomas) present pockets of verdant vegetation within the arid coastal desert of Andean South America and archaeological excavation within some of the oases has revealed a long history of human exploitation of these landscapes. Yet lomas settlements are under-represented in archaeological datasets due to their tendency to be located in remote inter-valley areas. Here, the authors employ satellite imagery survey to map the locations of anthropogenic surface features along the central Peruvian coast. They observe two categories of archaeological features, large corrals and clustered structures, and document a concentration of settlement features within lomas landscapes that suggests a pre-Hispanic preference for both short- and long-term occupation of these verdant oases.
ISSN:0003-598X
1745-1744
DOI:10.15184/aqy.2023.179