Dissertation Research: Household Economy in a Precolumbian State

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Under the direction of Dr. Alan Kolata, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Mr. Martin Giesso will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will analyze lithic materials derived from the Bolivian site of Tiwanaku. In past work he has collected surface artifacts from many areas of this large site. With National Science Foundation support he will continue this work and conduct limited excavation at a locale believed to be a lithics production workshop. He will also analyze the large sample already collected. He will collect data on variations in areal density, raw materials and types of stone implements represented. He will also reconstruct the production process to determine the degree of standardization. This will permit him to examine the issue of craft specialization and through it the degree of economic specialization at the site. Mr. Giesso will also conduct a geological survey to locate raw material sources and then use neutron activation to tie worked material to point of origin. These latter data also will shed light on economic organization. Tiwanaku is a large archaeological site located in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia. Given its size, monumental architecture and broad influence it may defined as a "State" and as such is the earliest one known in South America. It's origins may be traced to ca. 300 B.C. While archaeologists know that states arose at about this time in many parts of the world, they still do not understand in the detail the economic and political processes involved. For example it is not clear whether craft specialization played either a causal role or was a result of such centralization. Mr. Giesso's research will help to answer this question. This research is important for several reasons. It will produce data of interest to many archaeologists. It will increase our understanding of how complex societies such as our own arose and were maintained and will assist in the training of a promising young scientist.