Stephen Andrew Berquist

STEPHEN BERQUIST, Sewanee University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, was approved funding in May 2025 to aid research on “Hydropolitics and Climatic Imaginaries in pre-Hispanic and Early Spanish Colonial Peru.” This report presents the results of ongoing archaeological and paleoenvironmental research in the southern margin of the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, examining how political organization shaped strategies for managing climate variability from the Late Formative through the early Spanish Colonial period. The project hypothesizes that models of governance extended to the non-human environment, conditioning climatic knowledge and mitigation practices through ritualized infrastructure and environmental management. Excavations focused on abandoned canal systems, relict fields, and associated landscapes. Excavations and auger sampling conducted in 2025 confirmed two major phases of extensive cultivation — during the Late Formative (ca. 500–1000 B.C.E.) and the Late Intermediate Period (ca. 1000–1400 C.E.) — challenging prevailing models that attribute large-scale irrigation expansion to Moche, Chimú, or Inka states. Canal sediments yielded well-preserved carbon samples, diatoms, and phytoplankton, enabling innovative paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Additional investigations identified a probable paleolake near Middle Horizon monumental sites, suggesting alternative water-use strategies during this period. Excavations of middens, architectural complexes, and mortuary contexts further reveal shifting patterns of diet, trade, ritual practice, and political integration. Collectively, the findings support a major reorganization of environmental planning at the end of the Middle Horizon and underscore shared processes underlying the development of Tecapa and Chan Chan.