Shark fisheries during the second millennium BC in Gramalote, north coast of Peru

Abstract

This paper stresses the importance of shark fisheries at the site of Gramalote, an early Initial Period (1500–1200/1100 cal BC) fishing settlement, which has yielded the largest amount of shark remains ever reported along the coast of Peru. The article discusses fishing techniques utilized to capture such dangerous fish with limited technology. Moreover, it highlights the economic importance of this abundant source of marine food for small-scale residential settlements along the north coast of Peru. Based on current evidence, sharks may have played an important role in the domestic and community-level rituals at Gramalote. Due to the abundance of shark remains, it is suggested that the surplus of its flesh was processed in storage facilities at family level and later was traded with residential settlements for products not available on the coast. Finally, this article suggests that, during the Late Preceramic and Initial Periods, a subsistence pattern may have emerged: while the Central Coast and the Norte Chico regions relied on anchovy as one of the most important fish species for subsistence and other needs, on the north coast of Peru sharks may have played a pivotal role for daily subsistence and economic transactions at the household level.

Keywords:

• Shark fisheries
• Prehispanic maritime communities
• shark consumption

Acknowledgements

I thank Liliana Zegarra, Isabel Salvatierra, and Ali Altamirano for their invaluable support in analyzing the shark remains recovered at Gramalote. Special thanks to Luis Flores de la Oliva for the post-processing edition of all the images accompanying this paper and the map in Figure 1. Angiolina Abugattas made the hypothetical reconstruction of the shark fisheries in Figure 4. I am grateful to Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo who graciously shared his shark fisheries-related photograph taken on the coast of Ecuador (Figure 5). I would like to thank Paul Pluta, who reviewed the text and tables of this paper for taxonomic accuracy. Also thanks to Charles Spencer and Sumru Aricanli for granting permission to analyze and publish preliminary data on the shark remains found by Junius Bird during his pioneering excavations at Huaca Prieta and currently stored at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Finally, special thanks to the three anonymous reviewers who made substantial suggestions and corrections during the peer-reviewing process of this article. Any mistakes that could be identified in this paper are of my entire responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The excavations and analysis of the archaeological materials from the Gramalote site were supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation (Dissertation Fieldwork Grant #8427), the National Geographic Society/Waitt Grant Program (Grant # W188-11), Sigma Xi Research Grants (Grant # G20110315156259), Albers Funds, Department of Anthropology, Yale University, McMillan Center Dissertation Research Grant, Yale University, Beca de Repatriacion de Investigadores Peruanos, Programa Nacional INNOVATE Peru, Ministerio de la Produccion del Peru (Grant # 354-15), FONDECYT-CONCYTEC, Peru – Banco Mundial (Grant Contrato 007-2018), Start-Up-CLAS (Project # 00129517) and Start-UP-OR (Project # 00129782), University of Florida.