Introduction

Fronting the Pacific Ocean in southern Ecuador, Peru and northern Chile (~2°–32° S), the central Andean coast has played a critical role in South American history from the earliest human settlement more than thirteen thousand years ago to the present. As recently as the 1960s, Peru was the world’s top fishing nation. The leaders of that country’s 1968 military coup intended to fund much of their social and economic reforms with the proceeds from the fishery, but a combination of overexploitation and the 1972 El Niño caused a precipitous decline in the catch. Combined with other natural events such as the massive 1970 earthquake off the port of Chimbote and anthropogenic factors related to the new regime’s social and economic policies, the collapse of the fishery led ultimately to the downfall of the military government and to years of economic difficulty and social unrest (Masterson 2009).

Prior to the Spanish Conquest in 1532 ce, we lack the detailed historic record that allows us to see the role of the coast in modern Andean history. However, the archaeological record does give us the outlines of prehistoric human settlement, economy, adaptation and change in the region from the initial settlement onwards. We can assume that this history was coloured by the particular environment, climate and biotic resources of the region, without their necessarily being determining factors. In an interesting twist that brings these strands back together, until recently the most complete display of Peru’s prehistory was at the Museum of the Nation, housed in a monumental eleven-storey concrete structure originally built by the military government for the Ministry of Fisheries.