Internet Archaeology 10 Currie 5.0

4.4.4. Discussion of the findings

The flat valley bottom-land along the Río Tahuando around Zuleta, with the presence of the tola site itself had long been considered to have been a likely area for camellones, although none have ever been visible before, even from aerial photographs. In other regions of the sierra it has been possible to see the characteristic ridged lines of the raised field systems until relatively recently (as e.g. at Cayambe - see Figure 3 - and close to Hacienda Cusín near Lago San Pablo), but every year, more are lost to modern agriculture. At Hacienda Zuleta, these field systems underlie approximately half a metre of modern topsoil, with the most recent, post-eruption field reclamation activities only between 20 to 30 cm beneath the present day land surface. The soil micromorphology data indicate that this modern soil developed over the abandoned systems, and has largely remained untouched, although in some parts of the hacienda the land is occasionally ploughed for pasture improvements. For a soil to have formed over these systems, albeit a relatively shallow one, suggests that cessation of agricultural activity, here at least, may have taken place not very long after the land reclamation programme which followed the eruption of Quilotoa. The soil micromorphology samples from the post-eruption phases of cultivation indicate that the cultivation practices were more limited in their impact than those of the preceding phase. Of course this may also be a consequence of the rather 'snapshot' nature of the study, looking at individual samples from the two different systems which may reflect a very localised picture of soil development and anthropogenic influence. Further studies are certainly needed to clarify such questions concerning the duration of the occupation of the site and the cultivation of its land. However, fieldwork has at least been able to confirm the presence of camellones and to afford a closer view of the intensive nature of this cultivation practice within a sequence of land-use that certainly spanned the 13th century A.D., and possibly earlier, and probably continued through the period of Inca or Spanish contact.