Dissertation: Regional Settlement Patterns and Social Complexity in the Cinti Valley, Bolivia

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Under the direction of Dr. Marc Bermann, MS Claudia Rivera-Casanovas will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will conduct an archaeological survey of the Cinti Valley of Bolivia. The goal of the research is to gain insight into the range of variation which characterized prehistoric Andean societies., This region served as a hearth for both the domestication of indigenous plants and animals and for the development of complex societies. While best known for the Inca, this civilization was only the last in a millennium long sequence of such entities. Archaeologists have noted that a similar process occurred independently in many parts of both the Old and New Worlds and have searched for the underlying organizing principles which explain the transformation of once small scale agricultural groups into larger more complex societies. The prevailing theories emphasize the development of social hierarchies and the consolidation of power in the hands of a limited number of individuals. While such a process probably did occur in many places, including parts of the Andes itself, some ethnohistoric data recorded by early Spanish settlers as well as archaeological information itself, indicate that the situation is more complicated and that relatively large numbers of individuals can be successfully integrated into functioning social and economic entities without the development of elaborate mechanisms of centralized control. It has been suggested that in regions such as the Cinti Valley essentially independent kinship-based groups developed methods of collaboration which did not involve control by limited numbers of people over essential resources. MS Rivera-Casanovas will collect archaeological data to reconstruct essential aspects of the prehistoric social system to test this idea. She will conduct a systematic 100% survey of an area of 150 square km., note the size and distribution of sites and collect surface materials. She will also carry out a catchment analysis to determine the relationship between population distribution and potential agricultural productivity. Based on variation in household size and contents she will reconstruct the extent of status differentiation and political centralization.This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data on a poorly known Andean region and thus generate information of interest to many archaeologists. It will shed new light on the processes which led to social complexity and contribute to the training of a promising young scientist.