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

在这个合作研究项目中，Alan Kolata博士和托马斯Dillehay博士将领导一个科学小组，研究秘鲁北方下Jequetepeque山谷的史前史和古生态学。在一个干旱的沿海地区，看到了前西班牙文明的崛起工作，该集团希望分析城市化和经济多样化的长期社会进程，并指定这些变革的人类过程中相互作用的途径和机制在一个动态的物理环境。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，城市化人口如何应对这种环境变化，以及如何反过来，通过城市系统介导的大规模人类活动改变了潜在的生态过程和区域环境。在研究的第一阶段，第一个主要目标将是对下游山谷进行全面的考古调查，然后在住宅区和选定的农业特征中进行有限的试掘。该小组将分析下谷的航空照片，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根据规模、功能和与自然资源的接近程度确定一个地点类型，并将有助于确定定居点格局的基本特征。该项目的同时古环境方面将集中在两个目标：1。山谷的地貌和景观分析; 2.对流域内湖泊和邻近高地的古湖泊学分析。这些数据将允许重建人类在过去1500年中开发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，并没有长距离运输食物和其他农业项目。因此，他们没有强有力的机制来缓冲当地的环境影响，环境变化和社会反应之间的联系非常紧密。秘鲁的这个北方地区见证了城市社会的兴起和随后的衰落。这一现象只能从环境的角度来理解，本项目通过对人类和自然变量的关注，应能大大增进对文明兴起和在某些情况下随后衰落的过程的理解。

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.