Collaborative Research: Human-Environment Interactions in the Lower Jequetepeque Valley, Peru

在这项合作研究项目中，艾伦·科拉塔博士和托马斯·迪勒海博士将带领一个科学团队研究秘鲁北部下Jequetepeque山谷的史前和古生态。在一个经历了前拉美裔文明崛起的干旱沿海地区工作，该小组希望分析城市化和经济多样化的长期社会过程，并具体说明这些变革性的人类过程在动态的物理环境中相互作用的途径和机制。为了实现这些目标，该团队将重建Jequetepeque山谷的区域环境条件如何随着时间的推移而变化，城市化人口如何对这种环境变化做出反应，以及潜在的生态过程和区域环境又是如何通过城市系统调节的大规模人类行动而改变的。在这项研究的第一阶段，第一个主要目标将是对较低的山谷进行全面的考古调查，然后对住宅地点和选定的农业地貌进行有限的试掘。该小组将分析较低山谷的航空照片，以确定自然微环境区、建筑群、灌溉网络、水库、道路和其他显著特征。这方面工作的一个基本目标将是建立基于大小、功能和接近自然资源的场地类型，这将有助于确定聚落模式的基本特征。该项目同时进行的古环境方面将侧重于两个目标：1.对山谷的地貌和地貌进行分析；2.对分水岭和邻近高地内的湖泊进行古水文学分析。这些数据将可以重建过去1500年来人类利用的环境的空间和时间变化。秘鲁早期的城市社会是以当地为基础的，不会长途运输食物和其他农业项目。因此，它们没有强有力的缓冲当地环境影响的机制，环境变化和社会反应之间的联系非常紧密。秘鲁北部的这一地区见证了城市社会的兴起和随后的衰落。只有在环境背景下才能理解这一现象，该项目通过对人类和自然变量的关注，应大大增加对文明兴起和在某些情况下随后衰落的过程的了解。

In this collaborative research project Drs. Alan Kolata and Thomas Dillehay will lead a scientific team to study the prehistory and paleoecology of the lower Jequetepeque Valley in northern Peru. Working in an arid coastal region which saw the rise of pre-Hispanic civilization, the group wishes to analyze long-term social processes of urbanization and economic diversification and to specify the pathways and mechanisms through which these transformative human processes interacted within a dynamic physical environment. To accomplish these goals the team will reconstruct how regional environmental conditions in the Jequetepeque Valley varied over time, how urbanized human populations responded to this environmental variation, and how, in turn, underlying ecological processes and regional environments were altered by large-scale human actions mediated through the urban system. In this first phase of the research a first principal objective will be a full-coverage archaeological survey of the lower valley followed by limited test excavations in domestic contexts of residential sites and in selected agricultural features. The group will analyze aerial photographs of the lower valley to identify natural microenvironmental zones, architectural complexes, irrigation networks, reservoirs, roads and other salient features. A fundamental objective of this aspect of the work will be to establish a site typology based on size, function and proximity to natural resources and it will serve to establish the basic characteristics of the settlement pattern. The simultaneous paleoenvironmental aspect of the project will focus on two goals: 1. a geomorphological and landscape analysis of the valley and 2. a paleolimnological analysis of lakes within the watershed and adjacent highlands. These data will permit reconstruction of spatial and temporal changes in the environments exploited by human populations over the past 1500 years. Early urban societies in Peru were locally based and did not transport foods and other agricultural projects over long distances. Thus they had no strong mechanisms for buffering local environmental effects and the ties between environmental change and social response were extremely tight. This northern region of Peru saw the rise of urban society and its subsequent decline. This phenomenon can only be understood in an environmental context and this project, through its focus on both human and natural variables should significantly increase understanding of the processes which underlie the rise, and in some cases subsequent declines, of civilization.