The Andes offers a particularly effective focus for an archaeology of mobility because their extreme topography compresses enormous vertical resource diversity across short horizontal distances. In this article, the authors combine findings from two large-scale archaeological studies of adjacent watersheds—the Nasca-Palpa Project and One River Project—to provide the necessary context in which to explore changing mobilities from the Archaic Period to the Inca Empire, and from the Pacific coast to the high Andes. Analyses of obsidian lithics and stable isotopes in human hair are used to argue that changing patterns of mobility offer a new way of defining the ‘Horizons’ that have long dominated concepts of periodisation here.

Economic directness is a new model of socioeconomic organization for the Paracas culture (800–200 BC) in southern Peru, with wider implications for economic theory of the prehispanic Andean past. Using an archaeoeconomic approach to analyze settlement patterns, obsidian artifacts, malacological material, and camelid skeletal remains, this study reconstructs the Paracas economy by using primary archaeological data from the northern Nasca Drainage. Its results force reconsideration of existing socioeconomic models for the ancient Andes such as verticality, circuit mobility, llama caravan mobility, transhumance, and market concepts. Whereas components typical of these models are often absent in the case of the Paracas economy, our new proposal of economic directness integrates their relevant aspects. Economic directness is defined essentially by direct access to important resources from diverse ecological tiers, direct and down-the-line exchanges, reduced transaction costs, llama caravan transport, unbalanced commodity flows across the western Andes, and forces of supply and demand with major consumption on the coast. These features formed under conditions of population growth, generating a continuous and dense settlement pattern from the Pacific coast to the highland puna zone.

This paper presents an integrative and interdisciplinary approach to the study of ancient agricultural terraces and food production systems. Our approach consists of (1) a resource dependency theoretical framework and (2) the application of a variety of archaeological and geoscientific methods, including archaeological and geomorphological surveys, archaeological excavations, drone surveys, mapping based on satellite imagery and high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs), geographic information system (GIS) applications, soil testing, phytolith analysis, radiocarbon dating, and calculations of food supply capacity and labor requirements. We apply these to the prehispanic site of Cutamalla (3,300 m asl) in the southern Peruvian Andes, which serves as an ideal and pioneering case study. Previous research has focused primarily on the settlement of Cutamalla, particularly through large-scale archaeological excavations, but less attention has been paid to the extensive farming terraces surrounding the settlement and the close relationship between agricultural and settlement activities. By analyzing both the terrace and settlement levels, we take a new perspective and introduce the term agricultural terrace-settlement system for such complexes. Our results show that the residential occupation of Cutamalla and the use of the surrounding farming terraces coincided: the agricultural terrace-settlement system was intensively used for a relatively short period of about 200 years (~250–40 BCE) during the Formative Late Paracas and transitional Initial Nasca periods, long before the famous Inka terrace agricultural systems. There is no evidence of reoccupation of the site and subsequent reuse of the agricultural system. Our data also document the large extent of agricultural terraces around Cutamalla (221 ha) and that maize was likely a major crop grown there. Finally, we place these findings in their broader socio-economic and ecological context. Cutamalla was an important regional center and economic hub during a very dynamic period characterized by significant population growth and increased violence. Not only a more humid climate, but probably also forced collective labor were cornerstones of substantial agricultural production in Cutamalla and the region.

This paper presents a unique set of maps and geospatial data covering 16 ancient terrace agricultural systems in the upper part of the Río Grande de Nasca drainage. These systems are located on the western Andean flank (1200 and 3800 m asl), in the districts of Llauta, Laramate, and Ocaña in Lucanas province, Ayacucho region, southern Peru (14.5° S). Spanning various periods of the prehispanic era (1000 bce–1532 ce), only limited sections of these terraces are still in use today. Our field methods include archaeological, geomorphological, and drone surveys. The terrace systems were mapped using (1) satellite imagery and (2) high‐resolution Digital Surface Models (DSMs) within a Geographic Information System (GIS). The geospatial analysis and mapping results encompass parameters such as elevation range, terrace area, number and condition of terrace walls, length and height of terrace walls, area of individual terraced fields, associated architecture (e.g., irrigation canals), slope, current vegetation and use, and chronology. By documenting the widespread distribution, extent, and diversity of agricultural terraces in the region, this data set is extremely valuable for understanding prehispanic human‐environment interactions and land use dynamics, as well as indigenous agricultural practices and resilience strategies in response to environmental and climate change.