A new analysis of the pre-Hispanic field systems of La Mojana in the Colombian Caribbean, built centuries before the famed Aztec and Inca empires, has determined that the site’s complex structures and earthworks were likely constructed by a local, cooperative, relatively leaderless group in a short period of time and without a central organizing authority.
The discoveries potentially upend previously held beliefs that the site’s construction was overseen by a hierarchical central authority on its way to becoming a more organized, state-level society like their contemporaries, the Maya.
The new analysis also offers modern-day environmental planners a vital resource of ancient knowledge for managing our own changing climate, including managing floods and droughts that can plague the region’s farming communities.
Experts Wondered if Canals Could Be Made Before the Inca and Aztec Empires
According to a statement announcing the discovery, the pre-Hispanic field’s canals and raised crop sections cover 500,000 hectares of land. For comparison, the research team behind the study said this is roughly the same size as the Grand Canyon National Park in the U.S. and three times as large as the U.K.’s most populous city, London.
Previous studies have determined that the site’s raised field system managed significant water volumes during rainy seasons, while also “gradually” redirecting it in more arid seasons. This includes networks of canals that redistribute water from permanent sources around the site’s residential sections.
Such a design helped the locals buffer their primary food source against floods and droughts and create more fertile soils for crop cultivation. The researchers suggest that the strategically placed canals also aided in fish trapping for food.
Although evidence suggests these canals were in use from the first centuries BC until the 11th century AD, before the rise of the Aztec and Inca empires, the societal structure responsible for their creation has remained a mystery. Elaborate gold works and ceramics found in the area have led some to suggest that the people who built the canals were hierarchical chiefdoms on their way to becoming more sophisticated state-level societies, an attitude reflected in the site’s complexity.
“These field systems are so impressive that people have assumed they were achieved by hierarchical chiefdoms,” explained the study’s lead author, Dr Jasmine Vieri, from the University of Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Still, the study authors note, although these people were contemporaries of the well-organized Maya, “there is no evidence of state-level societies” in the region in the centuries before the Aztec and Inca empires.
Formulas Estimate Site’s Workforce and Organization Requirements
To shed more light on the people behind these impressive technological feats, the study authors used satellite imagery of the entire area. These images allowed the team to map out a 500-hectare portion of the pre-Hispanic field systems.
Once the site map was complete, the team said it revealed several critical details. This included the identification of 1,600 ridges and 63 housing platforms within the study area.
A closer analysis determined that the earliest formations were around 1.4 meters in height when measured from the top of the ridge to the lowest point of the canal. The team, which included researchers from the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) and the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, used the data to try to quantify the labor required to finish the work.
This formula factored in the social and spatial organization most likely needed to complete the projects. The team also included variables for volumes of moved earth, local geology, established indigenous working traditions, population density, and whatever technologies may have been available to the locals during this era.
A Small, Cooperative Workforce Without a Central Authority Likely Built Canals
When the researchers used a population of 1,600 estimated from other evidence, their workforce was calculated at roughly half. The team said this 800-worker estimate is considered conservative, “given ethnographic evidence that men, women and probably children traditionally engage in subsistence farming.”
When the team narrowed down its analysis to the canal system, their formula returned a surprising result. Instead of the large, hierarchical society that previous research had proposed, the study found that a small, relatively leaderless, highly cooperative workforce could have finished the job with time to spare. Study author Dr Jasmine Vieri said the team is confident that a single canal system could have been built in less than two months, or “around half of a dry season.”
“That’s a far lower labour investment than has been previously assumed, and manageable through cooperation,” Dr. Vieri said, adding that “local communities were capable of building these systems in very short periods of time, and organising themselves rather than relying on a powerful external force.”
Professor Marcos Martinon-Torres, the lead and senior author, agreed, noting how previous arguments proposing that a centralized, top-down planning structure was needed to complete the technological marvel are “unsupported by data,” and “risk obscuring the agency of indigenous pre-Hispanic populations.”
“Pre-Hispanic societies were inventive and cooperative; they worked with nature rather than trying to obstruct it,” the professor explained. “And we already know that recovering ancestral practices has [a] positive societal impact today through local populations connecting with their heritage through technology.”
Ancient Indigenous Solutions Could Help Solve Modern Problems
When discussing the potential impact of their findings beyond the obvious historical value, the research team said the sustainable solution engineered by these ingenious ancient peoples could be put into immediate use by locals today. They also note that such actions could be taken on a local level, with the need for state intervention reflecting the local cooperative spirit of the site’s original designers.
Perhaps ironically, the authors noted that current local populations are often overridden by the Colombian government, resulting in short-sighted efforts like attempting to block water flow to mitigate short-term damage instead of tapping into its long-term value.
Study author Dr Fernando Montejo Gaitán, from the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH), said policy makers “have shown interest” in such proven indigenous techniques, “but lacked the data” for modern-day implementation
“Our study is the first to show that these sustainable solutions can be organised locally and collectively,” Dr. Gaitán explained. “Local people may need resources from the state but not necessarily state intervention.”
The study “Collective labour and sustainability of pre-Hispanic field systems in La Mojana” was published in Communications Sustainability.
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org