No bosses, no problem! Pre-Hispanic farmers built giant water system bottom-up in Colombia. Really!

Amazing stuff! However, the claims about no top-down government etc. are most likely exaggerations or speculative!

When wishful thinking enters the minds of researchers! Dreams/bias of a cooperative collective!

It would be great if it can be confirmed that these fields and water management system were achieved through voluntarily cooperation, but this research is too speculative!

"The pre-Hispanic field systems of La Mojana in the Colombian Caribbean are so vast you can see them from a plane at high altitude. Their canals and raised fields – in use from the first centuries BC until the 11th century AD – cover an astonishing 500,000 hectares, roughly the same size as the Grand Canyon National Park, or three times the size of London. ...

archaeological team argues that the work was most likely locally-led, cooperative, and much faster than previously assumed. ...

Our study is the first to show that these sustainable solutions can be organised locally and collectively. Local people may need resources from the state but not necessarily state intervention.” ..."

From the abstract (emphasis added):

"Pre-Hispanic societies of the Colombian Caribbean lowlands built raised field systems spanning over 500,000 hectares. Their re-adoption may offer a potential solution to modern-day water control in the region. Traditionally interpreted as evidence of large-scale projects requiring centralised planning and coordination, the labour organisation behind their construction is nevertheless not fully understood.

To leverage archaeological knowledge in assessing potential for their re-adoption, we examine the function and labour input requirements of pre-Hispanic canal-ridge systems within a 500-hectare study area.

Conservative estimates indicate the entire system could have been built by local inhabitants in a single dry season.

Maintenance requirements were also modest, with full restoration once a generation requiring a few days annual labour.

We conclude that the sheer scale [???] of these systems cannot be taken as evidence of top-down control, and highlight the potential of low-cost, cooperative, sustainable approaches to water and land management in the Colombian Caribbean."

No bosses, no problem! Pre-Hispanic farmers built giant water system bottom-up, archaeologists reveal | University of Cambridge "Communities living in Colombia thousands of years ago achieved an engineering wonder of the world based on cooperation among family groups without top-down government, a new study shows. Archaeologists argue that policymakers in Colombia should now adopt a similar strategy to solve the country’s current water management crisis."

Collective labour and sustainability of pre-Hispanic field systems in La Mojana (open access)

Fig. 1: Areas of human occupation in La Mojana Region in Colombia.

Fig. 2: Aerial photograph of hydraulic systems in La Mojana, composed of canals and ridges (also known as camellones).