Fluvial Dynamics and Cultural Landscape Evolution in the Rio Grande de Nazca Drainage Basin Southern Peru

The aim of this research is to reconstruct the landscape evolution in the lower Rio Grande drainage basin during the Late Holocene and to detect interrelations between landscape evolution, cultural development, climatic changes and extreme events. Central to this is to identify and, if possible, quantify factors of landscape change. In doing so, the author differentiates natural from anthropogenic factors, i.e. to determine both the natural and the human impacts on the landscape. An important question is whether climatic changes and extreme events have had an influence on past societies.