A human skeleton from a Moche grave at Huaca de la Luna, Trujillo, Peru, shows evidence of taphonomic bone modification due to subterranean termite activity. Information related to the occasional osteophagous diet of termites on mammal and human remains is reviewed and detailed.

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International audienceThe Sechura Desert provides a unique example of a vast palaeo-lagoon system on the Peruvian coast that was active during the first millennium AD.Reconstruction of coastal evolution is made possible by the good resolution of the sedimentary records of the Las Salinas Noroeste coastal plain.Evidence from morphostratigraphy and sedimentary facies indicates marked environmental diversity between the 3rd and the 8th centuries AD and a wide variability of sedimentary dynamics: lagoon foreshores received alternately fine distal marine sediments and coarser continental sediments in pro-deltaic sheets. Evaporation phases periodically occurred in these foreshores causing the formation of salt crusts. After a last high water level in the 8th century AD, the lagoon ultimately dried out and remains dry today. The malacofauna and sedimentary facies indicate that marine marshes bordered by vegetation, perhaps mangrove, developed in the higher parts of these lagoons. This palaeogeography is explained by the progressive build-up of a sand bar which started at least in the middle Holocene. From the 3rd to 8th centuries AD, the lagoon had limited connection to the sea in its northern end and hosted a warm-water and productive ecosystem that was exploited by pre-Hispanic populations. Wetter conditions in the Andes and occasional El Niño rainfalls maintained the lagoon during this period. The freshwater input likely stopped in the 8th century AD, which led to the closing of the shore bar under the influence of the longshore drift rapidly followed by the drying up of the lagoon, and the abandonment of the archaeological site

Chapter 11 reviews research at Bayovar-01, a site in the Sechura Desert of far northern Peru that dates to the transition between the Early Intermediate Period and the Middle Horizon (roughly between 550 and 770 cal AD). Situated in front of a paleolagoon that was only wet occasionally, the authors suggest that Bayovar-01 was a specialized fishing and fish preparation site exporting to other areas by llama caravans.

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