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

在这个合作研究项目中。Alan Kolata和Thomas Dillehay将带领一个科学小组研究秘鲁北部Jequetepeque河谷下游的史前和古生态。在前西班牙文明兴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，并指定这些变革的人类过程在动态物理环境中相互作用的途径和机制。为了实现这些目标，该团队将重建杰克特佩克山谷的区域环境条件如何随时间变化，城市化的人口如何应对这种环境变化，以及反过来，通过城市系统介导的大规模人类活动如何改变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较低山谷进行全面的考古调查，然后在住宅遗址和选定的农业特征的国内背景下进行有限的试验挖掘。该小组将分析低河谷的航空照片，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是根据大小、功能和与自然资源的接近程度建立场地类型，这将有助于建立住区模式的基本特征。同时，该项目的古环境方面将侧重于两个目标：1。2.峡谷地貌和景观分析。流域和邻近高地湖泊的古湖泊学分析。这些数据将允许重建过去1500年来人类所利用的环境的时空变化。秘鲁早期的城市社会以当地为基础，没有长途运输食物和其他农业项目。因此，它们没有强有力的机制来缓冲当地的环境影响，环境变化与社会反应之间的联系极其紧密。秘鲁北部地区见证了城市社会的兴起和随后的衰落。这种现象只能在环境背景下理解，而这个项目，通过其对人类和自然变量的关注，应该大大增加对文明兴起的过程的理解，在某些情况下，随后的衰落。

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.