Pre-Columbian Hydraulics and Irrigation Methods: Validity and Adaptability
After more than 3,000 years of experimentation, agriculture on the coast of Peru came to constitute the axis of the life of village societies when, in the 8th-to-15th centuries of our era it achieved the level of intensive agriculture. This stage was characterized by maximum exploitation of the available agricultural lands and a process of expansion into new areas based on the following methods: a) slash-and-burn farming in forest clearings; b) irrigated agriculture controlled by a system of canals on the pampas near the coastal valley; c) wells sunk into river deltas to exploit groundwater (mahamaes); d) runoff from a type of trough or from “waterholes” (eutrophication) through small canals that transformed lagoons near the ocean into vegetable fields (huachaques); and e) a system of terraces irrigated by rainfall or canals that deviated water from Andean lagoons when they increased their volume during the rainy season. Other means utilized included applying manure, crop rotation, the natural hybridization of maize, seed selection, the suitable adaptation of channeling systems, and aligning furrows according to the slope of the terrain.
The objective of this study is to explain that today it is feasible to replicate the technological heritage developed by pre-Columbian Peruvians in the field of hydraulics by incorporating modern techniques and machinery to carry out technical-economic projects that are totally viable. The paper elucidates the replicability of the Nazca aqueducts, whose design and construction were brought to fruition by the Nazca 2000-to-3000 years ago. This involved utilizing locally-available construction materials such as flagstone and wooden poles from Guarango trees with their points burned so as to better resist rotting. In the bed of the Acari River, some 100 kilometers south of Nazca, we have conducted a study that entailed constructing filtering galleries that utilize the body of water located in the sub-superficial zone for domestic use.