Late Moche Society: Disruption, Reconstitution, and End

North Coast Society at AD 600

1. The end of the florescent Moche period (Middle Moche, Phases III and IV) can be dated to the late 7^th century AD.

2. At this time a group of local polities flourished along the coast, most of them controlling a single valley or maybe less in the case of the huge Lambayeque complex. Most of these polities were headed by rulers who shared the common dominant Moche political ideology, while expressing it in somewhat different details of ritual and symbolism in the different areas of the north coast. However Gallinazo-led areas still persisted in the north.

3. The exception to this pattern of small-scale political units was the Moche Valley-centered polity, which dominated the entire southern area from its “capital” at the Huacas del Sol and de la Luna. All valleys to the south of the Moche Valley had been conquered from their Gallinazo rulers in the Middle Moche (Moche III) phase (ca. AD 400). The rulers of this southernmost Moche polity appeared to have evolved political leadership to its most extreme degree of personalized rule, separated from the traditional links of kin-based social structure. By acting as priest (shaman)- kings in the rituals of political rule and having their portraits created in the ceramic stirrup-spout vessels, they assumed a level of individualized authority that diverged from Andean principles of communal integration and came closest to forming a stratified society and state. However, by separating themselves from their traditional structural sanctions they also separated themselves from its communal supports. While this resulted in assumption of exceptional authority in times of stability, it raised the dangerous potential that in times of disruption, these same rulers would be blamed to an exceptional degree for the negative event and rejected. This actually happened around AD 600.

Factors in Late 6^th Century AD Disruption

1. During the period ca. AD 560-600 a series of major droughts, interspersed with disastrous floods that accompanied major El Niño events, hit the North Coast. This placed major stress on the economic infrastructure with fields on the southern sides of the river valleys being inundated by windblown sand, canals being washed out, and communication disrupted. The result was disruption of the ability of leaders to furnish previous levels of food to their subjects, leading to shortage and unrest.

2. During the same period the Wari Empire was expanding its influence in the areas outside of the North Coast. Nearby highland areas were colonized, coastal areas directly to the south of the Moche area were dominated by Wari political ideology, and it is at least possible that hostile contact occurred between the Moche polities and Wari forces, although this did not lead to Wari intrusion into the North Coast.

3. Finally, given the nature of subsequent developments, especially in the southern Moche polity, it is possible that there was internal social unrest at this time. Such unrest could have been due to disruption caused by the environmental disruption, or the natural consequence of a long-lasting system in which rulers were progressively breaking down the traditional social order in the interests of establishing their own power and substituting their own individual persons for the previous kinship-based system. In either case the ruling order seems to have become discredited in the eyes of its subjects in the southern polity.

4. Thus some combination of these factors resulted by AD 600 in the Moche polities coming under considerable pressure whose effects were being felt differently in the various areas of the north coast depending on differential impact, particular local history and resources. The subsequent history of the Moche North Coast traces the extent of this disruption and the response of local leaders to it.

Impact of Late 6^th Century AD Disruption: Archaeology

1. Impact was greatest in the south. Here the southern Moche polity abandoned (or was forced out of) all of its subject valleys south of the Moche. There are virtually no material remains from the Late Moche (Moche V) phase in these valleys in major contrast to the immediately preceding situation.

2. In the Moche Valley there is much evidence of flooding at the Huaca del Sol site - the capital of the southern Moche polity, which is largely abandoned at this time. Also there is evidence of significant advance of dunes south of the river and inundation of field systems in this part of the valley. Similar evidence of dune inundation of farmland lying south of the rivers occurs in the Chicama and Jequetepeque Valleys while in the far northern Piura Valley major flooding of the most important Moche centers occurred.

3. There is significant evidence for settlement change as a result of the disruption. In the Moche Valley a new settlement, Galindo, was established inland in the valley neck affording easier access to water sources and control of irrigation in this time of drought. The same settlement replacement occurred with the founding of Talambo in the Jequetepeque Valley and Pampa Grande in the Lambayeque Valley, although in these valleys there was not an accompanying abandonment of large areas of land as in the far southern valleys of the Moche Valley-centered polity. The new towns possess unprecedented urban characteristics that suggest major social changes in social organization.

4. Major changes occur in burial patterns in the Moche Valley with a specific form of in-house burial appearing in the new town of Galindo and an accompanying decrease of cemetery burial, long the dominating form of Moche burial. This again is probably a material manifestation of change in social order and religious belief.

5. Changes in art include pottery form and construction technique, ceramic and mural iconography, elimination of whole categories of traditional Moche elite art, and adoption of significant foreign influence. This indicates change in dominant political ideology.

6. Finally, these changes occur differentially along the coast indicating that different polities instigated their own forms of response to what appears to have been a common problem.