Dissertation Research: Dietary Reconstruction: Trace OrganicAnalysis of Tiwanaku Ceramics. Implications in Form, Function, and Social Status

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Under the direction of Dr. Henry Bunn, Mr. Michael Marchbanks a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will assemble ceramics from the site of Tiwanaku and immediate surrounding environs in Bolivia. All were collected during careful archaeological excavation and thus derive from known cultural contexts. He will then conduct lipid analysis in an attempt to determine the foods and other organic materials which were either stored, cooked or consumed in these vessels. To do this he will also acquire modern samples and ethnographic information from local inhabitants and markets to provide a controlled baseline. With such data it should be possible to answer a number of important questions about the subsistence practices and social organization of Tiwanaku's inhabitants. Tiwanaku is a major monumental architectural site, occupying an area of approximately 8 square kilometers. Inhabited from approximately 1000 BC to AD 1200 it saw the rise of the earliest kingdom in the Andes. Research conducted by a University of Chicago team headed by Dr. Alan Kolata has reconstructed much of the history of the site and this provides the broader context within which Mr. Marchbanks work will take place. His analysis should accomplish several goals. First it will increase knowledge of subsistence practices because it is likely that some types of food were traded into the region over long distances. Secondly, it will help to elucidate the role which trade played in the rise of this early Empire. The work will also provide insight into the internal organization at Tiwanaku because, on the basis of the distribution of particular types of food it should be possible to determine the social status of individuals who inhabited different parts of the site. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will also help to pioneer the application of analytic chemical techniques which, hopefully, will be of use in many archaeological situations. Finally it will help to train an extremely promising young scientist.