Ancient urban morphology in the Viru Valley, Peru: Remote sensing work at the Gallinazo Group (100 B.C.-A.D. 700)

Research on the Early Intermediate period (100 B. C.-A. D. 700), which witnessed the emergence of states and urban life along the coast of northern Peru, has been hampered by a lack of information regarding settlement size and population estimates. This paper presents the results of an integrated program of excavation, sub-soil probing, and magnetometer survey at the Gallinazo Group in the Viru Valley that shed light on the size of the ancient settlement. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of this integrated approach in assessing the extent of ancient settlements in the region and indicate that the Group was possibly the largest city of its kind on the Peruvian north coast during the centuries that preceded the rise of Huacas de Moche.