The Lost Woodlands of Ancient Nasca Beresford-Jones Hardback OUP/British Academy

The Lost Woodlands of Ancient NascaA Case-study in Ecological and Cultural Collapse\nAuthor(s): David Beresford-Jones\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Oxford University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Oxford University Press\nISBN-13: 9780197264768, 978-0197264768\nSynopsis\nThis book presents an archaeological case of prehistoric human environmental impact: a study of ecological and cultural change from the arid south coast of Peru, beginning around 750 BC and culminating in a collapse during the Middle Horizon, around AD 900. Its focus is the lower Ica Valley - today depopulated and bereft of cultivation and yet with archaeological remains attesting to substantial prehistoric occupations - thereby presenting a prima facie case for changed environmental conditions.\n\n Previous archaeological interpretations of cultural changes in the region rely heavily on climatic factors such as El Nio floods and long droughts. While the archaeological, geomorphological and archaeobotanical records .