The nature of the spread of Moche-style architecture and pottery has been debated, with a theory of a Moche conquest state facing opposing theories of a “Mochelandia”, the diffusion of a Moche art style or religion across multiple valleys. In the Santa Valley, widespread changes in settlement patterns between the Gallinazo Late Suchimancillo period and the Moche Guadalupito period, including the movement of people from the upper valley to the lower valley, the maximization of arable land, the abandonment of Late Suchimancillo sites and citadels, and the establishment of a regional center support the theory of a Moche conquest in the region.
Settlements in the Late Suchimancillo period are clustered in the narrow upper river valley (maps a and b). This region has a high concentration of settlements, including the local centers at sites 11, 25, 45, 72, and 103. These centers, not including their surrounding settlements, together held a population of about 10,000, or roughly one third of the Santa Valley’s total population. These local centers and their smaller surrounding sites were built along the
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As the Moche themselves responded to the growing population in the Moche valley by increasing the area of land under cultivation, it is reasonable to infer that a Moche conquest would utilize the same strategy in subjugated lands. The lower Santa Valley contains ample amounts of arable land (in comparison to the upper valley) that in Late Suchimancillo period was left largely unexploited as there were few settlements in the area. In the Guadalupito period, the creation of settlement sites on and the movement of the population to the edges of this arable land indicate both a Moche intent to maximize the area of cultivated land and the gathering of a workforce to do