ABSTRACT
In Inca times, Andean food production varied significantly across local landscapes, combining distinctive assemblages of domesticated and wild resources. For several decades in the mid-twentieth century, the estimated count of worldwide famine deaths exceeded the sixteenth-century population of the Inca Empire. The causes of modern famines—environmental disruption, war, and dysfunctional policy—can be sought in the historical and archaeological record. Most highland farmers and herders faced seasonal fluctuations in their food supplies, and they produced modest surpluses to see them from one harvest to the next. Coastal societies living under Inca rule experienced their own environmental cycles that threatened their food supply. Tectonic events could have extreme impacts on local settlement and food production, albeit on a more localized scale. Coastal regions experienced not only the force of tremors, but also earthquake-generated tsunamis that inundated low-lying areas.
