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Reassessing the Chicama-Moche Intervalley Canal: Comments on “Hydraulic Engineering Aspects of the Chimu Chicama-Moche Intervalley Canal“

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Thomas Pozorski  and
Shelia Pozorski
Thomas Pozorski
Affiliation:
Section of Man, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 ForbesAvenue, Pittsburgh PA 15213
Shelia Pozorski
Affiliation:
Section of Man, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 ForbesAvenue, Pittsburgh PA 15213
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Abstract

The Chicama-Moche Intervalley Canal never carried water as a functioning canal due to uplift slope errors made by unsophisticated Chimu engineers. There is no evidence of tectonic uplift directly affecting the Intervalley Canal, either during or after its construction, to create the numerous uphill sections along its entire length. The hydrological calculations of Ortloff et al. (1982) are based on preliminary survey data which do not conform with more detailed excavation and survey data. Thus, in this commentary the Intervalley Canal is reinterpreted as an impressive manifestation of the political and organizational power of the Chimu rulers, but not as a great hydraulic engineering feat.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , October 1982 , pp. 851 - 868
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1982

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