Climate Change and the Fall
and Rise of Andean
CivilizationsMichael E. Moseley
Department of
Anthropology
University of Florida
November 14,
2000
Fine Arts Building B, Room 103
8:00 PM
The rise and fall of prehistoric Andean
civilizations tend to coincide with episodes of extreme
drought each lasting decades or centuries. The changing
fortunes of the highland Inca and their coastal advisories,
the Chimu, are discussed in the context of protracted dry
times between AD 1100 and 1500. Because highland
populations can mitigate drought much more readily than
populations on the desert coast, dry times tilted the
economic and demographic balance of power in favor of the
Inca, who conquered the Chimu in AD 1470