At the northeastern extreme of the central Andean massif, Chachapoyas offered its inhabitants a strategic position to mediate cultural interaction among three great South American archaeological co-traditions: the Central Andes, the northern Andes, and western Amazonia. The role of the Chachapoya aaaaas purveyors and conveyors of resources shaped the character of regional cultural development, especially lending Chachapoya art, architecture and iconography the syncretistic, cosmopolitan flavor that seems paradoxical in a location so isolated today. Throughout Chachapoyas, canyons abruptly descend thousands of meters through tightly compacted alpine, montane, premontane and tropical life zones. In the southern area, vertical drops of 4,000 m occur within horizontal distances of only 50 km. Chachapoya settlements typically crown mountain and ridge tops above intermontane valleys covered in thick cloud forest where they are exposed to moist air masses that rise from the Amazon basin and condense between 2,500 and 3,500 masl. The steep ridges blocking the westerly flow of moist air leave semi-arid “topoclimates” on their leeward slopes and generate great biogeographic complexity. Modern human settlement has further fragmented the montane forests.
The chief Chachapoyas landform is the eastern Andean cordillera separating the Maranon and Huallaga, both major north-flowing tributaries of the Amazon. Reaching altitudes well above 4,000 masl in the south, the crest of the divide is covered by alpine and sub-alpine grasslands in glacially carved, U-shaped valleys separated by rocky peaks. Moist Amazonian air-flow striking the eastern flanks generates perhumid and humid tropical montane forests from 400 to 3,500 masl above the banks of the Huallaga. On the drier western slopes, modern populations farm moist montane valleys between 2,500 and 3,200 masl. In northern Chachapoyas, the Utcubamba and its tributaries split the cordillera in two while flowing north to join the Maranon near the modern city of Bagua. Summits separating the Utcubamba from the Maranon to the west, and the Huayabamba drainage to the east, gradually descend below 3,000 masl just north of Chachapoyas. Arid thorn forests predominate toward the bottom of the Maranon canyon near 1,000 masl.
World History
