El Paraíso is the name of a large complex of stone structures dated to the early preceramic or "Cotton Preceramic" located in the Chillon River Valley of coastal Peru. the site includes an area of over 58 hectares, and is one of the earliest examples of monumental stone architecture in the Americas. El Paraíso (or Paradise) was a cotton farming community of between 1500 and 3000 people between about 2000-1400 BC (4200-3250 cal yr BP), where the primary subsistence source was fish (primarily anchoveta and sardines) and other marine fauna. Squash, beans, and jicama were also grown here.
El Paraiso is considered support for the "maritime hypothesis", that argued that a large percentage of the preceramic populations relied on maritime foods, fish and other resources. The leading scholar supporting the maritime hypothesis was Michael Moseley. Since the excavation of El Paraiso in the 1980s, the maritime hypothesis has been widely accepted for coastal societies; the fluctuating availability of fish over time resulting from climate change has been a more recent focus of investigations.
The site was excavated by The Proyecto Bajo Valle del Chillón, led by Jeffrey Quilter.
Sources
Quilter, J. 1985 Architecture and Chronology at El Paraiso, Peru. Journal of Field Archaeology 12(3):279-297.
Quilter, J., et al. 1991 Subsistence Economy of El Paraíso, an Early Peruvian Site. Science 251(4991):277-283.
Quilter, J. and T. Stocker 1983 Subsistence Economies and the Origins of Andean Complex Societies. American Anthropologist 85(3):545-562.
Sandweiss, D. H., et al. 2004 Geoarchaeological evidence for multidecadal natural climatic variability and ancient Peruvian fisheries Quaternary Research 61(3):330-334.
