Dissertation Research: Households and the Emergence of Inequality in the Prehispanic Calchaqui Valley, Argentina

在Terence D'Altroy博士的指导下，Kirsten Olsen女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她的项目目标是研究社会复杂性的发展与单个家庭单位内活动的组织之间的关系。近年来，考古学家越来越关注家庭单位。在大型遗址中，住宅建筑的遗迹往往丰富且易于识别，因此易于进行检查。其次，越来越清楚的是，即使在复杂的国家层面的社会中，大多数生存和制造活动也发生在家庭中，而不是寺庙或其他仪式建筑中，因此，人们可以通过研究最小的基本单位来深入了解广泛的社会组织。一组人类学理论预测，随着社会变得越来越复杂，社会角色变得越来越严格，这对家庭组织也有影响。也有人假设，随着复杂性的增加，家庭内部分层也会发生，财富和地位的差异也会出现。奥尔森将通过对阿根廷北部安第斯山脉卡奇·阿登特罗地区四个遗址的挖掘来评估这些预测。通过对这一地区的长期研究，特伦斯·达尔特罗伊博士和他的同事们确定了一个史前序列，从早期的狩猎和采集群体开始，一直持续到西班牙征服。在区域发展时期（约公元1000 -1410年），后续群体的特点是社会复杂性水平不断提高，这为奥尔森女士研究家庭组织随时间的变化提供了一个很好的背景。她将挖掘两个时期的一系列家庭遗址，并研究家庭之间的财富/地位差异以及个体单位内活动的范围和空间分布。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的基本数据。它将阐明社会复杂性的发展，并有助于培养有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Terence D'Altroy, MS Kirsten Olsen will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. The goal of her project is to examine the relationship between the development of social complexity and organization of activities within individual household units. In recent years archaeologists have focused increasingly on household units. Remains of domestic structures are often abundant and readily identifiable within large sites and thus readily accessible to examination. Secondly it has become increasingly clear that even in complex state level societies most subsistence and manufacturing activities took place in households rather than temples or other ceremonial buildings and thus one can gain insight into broad social organization through study of the smallest fundamental units. A body of anthropological theory predicts that as societies grow complex, social roles become ore tightly defined and this has implications for within household organization. It has also been hypothesized that with increasing complexity inter-household stratification also occurs and that wealth and status differences emerge. MS Olsen will evaluate these predictions through the excavation a four sites in the Cachi Adentro region in the northern Argentina Andes. As the result of long term research in this region Dr. Terence D'Altroy and his colleagues have defined a prehistoric sequence which begins with early hunting and gathering groups and continues through Spanish conquest. During the Regional Development period (ca 1,000-1410 AD) succeeding groups were characterized by increasing levels of social complexity and this provides an excellent context for MS Olsen to examine the change in household organization over time. She will excavate a series of domestic sites from each of two time periods and examine both wealth/status differences between households and the range and spatial distribution of activities within individual units. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide basic data of interest to many archaeologists. It will shed light on the development of social complexity and assist in training a promising young scientist.