Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa Dating the occupation of Cerro Arena: A defensive Salinar-phase settlement in the Moche Valley, Peru Jean-François Millaire Department of Anthropology, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Cerro Arena Salinar Andes Radiocarbon dating Urbanism Warfare Irrigation ABSTRACT The archaeological site of Cerro Arena has often been described as the earliest urban settlement on the Peruvian north coast, but until recently it was unclear when the site was founded, how long it was occupied, and what role it could have played in the regional political system. This paper presents results of survey work, excavations, and radiocarbon dating work carried out at Cerro Arena in 2017. Fieldwork revealed that the site was occupied for a very short period of time (between ~375 and 360 cal BC) and that it likely functioned as a semi-urban defensive settlement. These results raise questions about the urban character of Cerro Arena and the reasons behind its foundation, while also forcing us to problematize anthropological interpretations of urban centers as permanent features and to explore the variable and stochastic nature of early urban settlements in the Andes. 1. Introduction The origins of urban life and complex political organization are two compelling research problems in anthropological archaeology (Cowgill, 2004; Flannery, 2002; Marcus and Flannery, 1996; Rowe, 1963; Smith, 2007; Smith, 2009; Taylor, 2012; Trigger, 2003), and coastal Peru is one of the few places where early city life and archaic states developed independently. When, why, and how cities became part of human so- cieties are key questions that were first examined by Childe (1950) who described the early development of urban life in Egypt and Mesopo- tamia as special places where food surpluses from intensive agricultural production had released people from the land, allowing them to con- gregate in larger settlements. Although more recent research has questioned the timing of events (Jacobs, 1969; Latham, 2010; Maisels, 2003; Smith et al., 2014; Soja, 2000, 2010; Taylor, 2012), Childe’s perspectives on the birth of the earliest cities and the radical social transformations associated with this process is still largely accepted by social scientists (Cowgill, 2004; Harris and Smith, 2011; Marcus and Sabloff, 2008; Sinclair et al., 2010; Smith, 2007; Smith, 2009; Smith et al., 2014; Taylor, 2012; Trigger, 2003). While archaeological work in different parts of the world has vastly increased our understanding of the processes connected with the emergence of the first cities, defined by Wirth (1938:8) as relatively large, dense, and permanent settlements of socially heterogeneous in- dividuals, we know comparatively little on the earliest urban agglom- erations in the Andean region of South America and the social and political processes that led to the origins of urban life in the region. Research on early urbanism in Peru has been framed, to some extent, by a debate on the antiquity of city life in the area and by the possibility that the region was even “anti-urban” in character (Makowski, 2008). The debate stems in part from the precocious development of several sizeable civic-ceremonial centers during the Late Preceramic Period that seem to lack large and permanent populations, and from the pre- sence of a number of large agglomerations in subsequent periods, in- terpreted as pilgrimage centers, sacred cities, or cities of spectacle (Kolata, 1997; Lanning, 1967; Rowe, 1963, Schaedel, 1966; Shady, 2006; Swenson, 2003; Von Hagen and Morris, 1998; cf. Chicoine and Ikehara, 2014). According to Makowski (2008:652-653), much of this debate hinges on how we define cities and on the need for more area excavations to document the various forms and functions of early urban settlements in the region. Indeed, despite extensive archaeological fieldwork which helped document what scholars currently recognize as the region’s earliest cities (Bawden, 1996; Brennan, 1978, 1980a; Chapdelaine, 2002, 2009, 2010; Chicoine and Ikehara, 2014; Helmer and Chicoine, 2015; Isbell, 1977; Janusek, 2004; Jennings and Earle, 2016; Millaire, 2010a; Millaire and Eastaugh, 2011, 2014; Moore, 1996; Moseley, 2002; Pozorski and Pozorski, 1994; Rowe, 1963; Schaedel, 1951; Shimada, 1994), detailed ground plans of the earliest urban sites are rare, and only a few settlements have been surveyed and excavated extensively enough to allow for the study of their forms and functions, and even basic information on settlement morphology, city size, access patterns, and population estimates are often lacking. The archaeological site of Cerro Arena occupies a special position in this context. Located in the lower Moche Valley (Fig. 1; Supplementary https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2019.101142 Received 11 July 2018; Received in revised form 23 December 2019 E-mail address: jean-francois.millaire@uwo.ca. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 57 (2020) 101142 0278-4165/ © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. T