Why the Moche Valley?
Locally called the Valle Santa Catalina and historically called the Valle Chimo, the Moche Valley in northern Peru has been a political, demographic, and cultural focal point in the region for millennia. As early as 1800 BCE, local communities were collaborating to build entire complexes of monumental temples – referred to as huacas – where families could come together for important ritual events and to exchange goods. Centuries later (~200 – 700 CE), generations of powerful Moche noble families would expand their rule over much of the valley and beyond. This legacy of political expansionism was continued by the Kingdom of Chimor (~900 – 1450s CE), whose royalty conquered and ruled much of the North Coast of Peru. Such ambitions eventually pit the Kings of Chimor against the Emperors of burgeoning Inka Empire and decades of conflict would see the Moche Valley fall to the Inka just before arrival of the Spanish. Even so, the broader regional importance of the Moche Valley persisted throughout Spanish rule and well into the modern era: with the colonial center of Trujillo growing into the third largest city in modern Peru.
The Moche Valley Settlement Database (MVSD)
To better understand these varied and fascinating histories embedded in the Moche Valley landscape, I have been spearheading a collaborative project with Dr. Michele Koons (Denver Museum of Nature and Science) and Dr. Brian Billman (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) called the Moche Valley Settlement Database (MVSD). The MVSD is a composite of Prehistoric (~10,000 BCE – 1500s CE) and Viceroyalty Era (1500s – 1800s CE) settlement pattern data that includes site locations, site descriptions, aerial drone maps, early historical maps and census data, and local Indigenous stories and histories of landscape features and places. Over the past decade, I have compiled most of these data into a GIS database covering around 1700 km2 of the Moche Valley and its adjacent highlands. The completed MVSD will provide a uniquely wide spatial and temporal lens through which varied scholars can investigate settlement patterns associated with a host of phenomena and moments in time: the seasonal rounds of earliest settlers of the valley, the rise and fall of local polities like the Moche or Chimor, and the introduction and exploitation of African slaves amongst the early haciendas of the rural landscapes around Spanish Trujillo.
Integrating and Exploring Aerial Mapping Data
For the past seven years, I have been collecting aerial imagery data on archaeological sites in the Moche Valley using a variety of platforms ranging from quad-copter drones to kites. I refined this imagery to produce over 110 sets of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and Orthophotos that record hundreds of archaeological sites and features – everything from monumental adobe huaca mounds to elaborate hilltop fortresses – in the Moche Valley. These data were then integrated into the larger MVSD where they will be used to better understand local settlement histories in the region as well as modern patterns of site preservation and destruction. Click here to check out the collaborative poster I presented on these maps at the 88th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Portland, OR.
Weaving Local Histories into the MVSD
Importantly, the MVSD will be built and presented as a bi-lingual tool towards creating learning and collaboration opportunities for students – and communities – in both Peru and the United States. Upon completion, the archaeological database itself will be accessible by request and serve as an academic tool for modeling and understanding human landscapes over the longue durée. An additional and important goal of the MVSD is the integration of local Indigenous histories, origin stories, and descriptions of sacred places and landscape features. Such histories will be presented in a public interface with interactive maps, local stories, and 3-D site/landscape renderings. Eventually, I also envision the MVSD providing free bi-lingual primary and secondary education teaching modules on the prehistory and history of the Moche Valley. Applying lessons from my community work with MOCHE Inc., these education initiatives would be done in collaboration with local Indigenous communities, educators, and institutions to ensure that the construction of historical narratives are a collaborative endeavor.
The Chimor Heartlands-Hinterlands Archaeological Project (CHHAP)
The Chimor Heartlands-Hinterlands Archaeological Project (CHHAP) is a collaborative project that will represent the largest thrust towards completing the MVSD and preparing it for wider academic and public audiences. The main research goal of CHHAP will be to use a combination of legacy and modern survey data, drone/aerial imagery, and ceramic analyses to reconstruct and compare the valley-wide political landscape of earlier Moche polities with that of the later Kingdom of Chimor. A large part of CHHAP fieldwork will be focused on modernizing several unpublished legacy survey datasets: mainly (1) the 1970s Harvard Chan Chan – Moche Valley Project (CC-MVP) survey data and (2) Billman’s 1990s survey of the Middle Moche Valley. These legacy surveys will be important additions to the MVSD as they recorded dozens of sites that have since been destroyed by urban, agricultural, and industrial expansion in and around Trujillo. I was awarded a Visiting Fellowship at the Sainsbury Research Unit of the University of East Anglia to finish digitizing these surveys and am currently seeking fieldwork funding for CHHAP in collaboration with Dr. Michele Koons (Denver Museum of Nature and Science) and Dr. Brian Billman (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).