Beyond Making Maps: Updating the Virú Valley Settlement Pattern Using GIS (original) (raw)

Abstract

Archaeologists frequently turn to settlement pattern studies to help interpret the archaeological record. These studies can be very useful for understanding many things about the past, including subsistence practices, trade and raw material use, and the social, political, and economic organization of a region. Most settlement pattern studies in the Andean region were conducted prior to the development of modern spatial analysis tools, namely GIS. On the whole, these studies are excellent and informative, but the data that can be extracted from them is limited by their non-digital mapping techniques. In this paper, I show the benefits of updating older settlement pattern studies using GIS. I use Gordon R. Willey's settlement pattern study of the Virú Valley as a base, and map Puerto Morin- and Virú-Period settlements onto this base. Beyond merely mapping settlements in a modern way, this study shows that the entire valley system was centrally-organized during the Virú Period, whereas it was more fragmented during the earlier Puerto Morin Period. This finding reinforces data showing that a powerful polity took control of the valley in the Virú Period.

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