Specialization as Survival: Navigating Economic and Environmental Risk on the Prehispanic Andean Coast by Jo Osborn, PhD, Texas A&M University

An aerial view of Jahuay (Chincha, Peru) seen from the south.

In Peru’s coastal desert, climatic variability caused by the El Niño Southern Oscillation cycle disrupts both agricultural and marine-based economies. ENSO effects can range from minor to catastrophic and are often experienced unevenly across regional landscapes. How do communities confront such challenging circumstances? This talk explores the development of community economic specialization at Jahuay (200 BC–AD 150), a fishing village on the Peruvian south coast where full-time maritime specialists made a living through fishing, shellfish collection, and hunting marine birds and mammals. These products were consumed locally and exchanged within a regional economic system that provided access to agricultural and craft products. I propose that complementarity between independent specialized communities exploiting distinct resources was a regional strategy that buffered against periodic scarcity and made communities more resilient to El Niño cycles. 

Jo Osborn is an anthropological archaeologist and zooarchaeologist focused on South American archaeology. Her research investigates how human societies adapt to environmental change and disruption across diverse landscapes, from the Colombian Amazon to the Peruvian coast. She integrates faunal remains, ethnohistory, and archaeometry to understand how these challenges are reflected in past subsistence and economic systems. Jo holds a BA in Anthropology from Harvard University (2012), and an MA (2015) and PhD (2022) in Anthropology from the University of Michigan. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Zooarchaeology Lab at Texas A&M University.

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