Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Warfare and Political Development in the Prehispanic Northwest Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru

在查尔斯·斯坦尼什博士的指导下，伊丽莎白·阿库什将完成博士论文的数据分析。她将利用NSF奖获得秘鲁南部的喀喀湖附近一系列考古遗址的放射性碳年代。这些遗址属于科拉文化，科拉文化在公元1000-1450年左右的中期晚期蓬勃发展，恰好在印加征服安第斯山脉之前。这些遗址都戒备森严，它们构成了该地区任何时期战争的一些最显著的证据。阿尔库什的项目以科拉斯这个戒备森严的大片地区为例，来说明前现代战争是如何在政治上塑造该地区的。她的博士研究包括使用航空照片确定大约100个设防的科拉遗址，对其中的45个遗址进行调查，以及在10个遗址进行小规模试掘。其目的是通过对科拉地区堡垒建设、场地占领和场地废弃的顺序的检查，澄清激烈战争对国家前政治权力的影响。由于Titicaca盆地北部的陶器序列没有明确的定义，放射性碳测年是测定这些遗址和其他类似陶器的最好方法。最近的考古学研究揭示了战争在史前令人惊讶的普遍存在，人类学家现在认识到，在整个人类社会的漫长历史中，战争是权力关系和社会变革的核心重要因素。然而，它的影响是复杂和不可预测的。国家之前的战争有时导致复杂的中央集权政治的出现，有时阻碍地区的政治和文化一体化。这两种情况都发生在安第斯高地：像印加这样的帝国建立在征服战争的基础上，而在这些帝国之间的间歇期，长期的战争往往在政治和社会上使地区支离破碎。科拉地区防御工事的激增和远程贸易网络的崩溃表明，在这里，战争造成了分裂。但阿尔库什研究的其他细节指向了一个更复杂的故事，特别是各种戒备森严的地点，从防御较少的地方到大规模围墙，从几乎没有人居住的小避难所到靠近城市中心的街道、居民区和墓地。接触期间的文件和该项目的数据中也有证据表明，科拉地区最终实现了政治上的统一。如果是这样的话，科拉斯家族的故事将是关于如何打破防御僵局，以及战争如何成为巩固而不是分裂的基础。这项研究将产生额外的好处。它将用碳年代填补区域陶瓷序列的空白，有利于未来的研究。它记录了许多以前未公布的遗址，这些遗址正迅速成为掠夺和农业区扩张的牺牲品。最后，它将在很大程度上澄清一个非常鲜为人知的地区的史前问题。

Under the direction of Dr. Charles Stanish, Elizabeth Arkush will complete the analysis of data for her doctoral dissertation. She will use the NSF award to obtain radiocarbon dates for a suite of archaeological sites in southern Peru near Lake Titicaca. These sites belong to the Colla culture, a group that thrived in the Late Intermediate Period, around 1000 - 1450 AD, just prior to the Inca conquest of the Andes. The sites are all fortified, and they constitute some of the most marked evidence for warfare in the region from any time period. Ms. Arkush's project takes the extensive, heavily fortified region of the Collas as a test case to illuminate how premodern warfare shaped regions politically. Her doctoral research has involved the identification of about a hundred fortified Colla sites using air photos, survey of forty-five of these sites, and small-scale test excavations at ten sites. The goal is to clarify the effects of intense warfare on pre-state political power through an examination of the sequence of fort-building, site occupation, and site abandonment in Colla territory. Because the pottery sequence for the northern Titicaca Basin is poorly defined, radiocarbon dating is the best means to date these sites and others with similar pottery. Recent archaeological studies have revealed the surprising prevalence of warfare in prehistory, and anthropologists are now recognizing that warfare was a centrally important factor in power relations and social change throughout the long story of human societies. However, its effects were complicated and unpredictable. Pre-state warfare sometimes resulted in the emergence of complex, centralized polities, and sometimes prevented the political and cultural integration of regions. Both scenarios happened in the Andean highlands: empires like that of the Incas were built on conquest warfare, while in the hiatuses between these empires, chronic warfare often fragmented regions politically and socially. The proliferation of fortified sites and the breakdown of long-range trade networks in Colla territory suggest that here, warfare caused fragmentation. But other details from Ms. Arkush's research point to a more complex story, especially the sheer variety of fortified sites, from lightly defended to massively walled, from small, barely occupied refuge posts to near-urban centers with streets, residential compounds, and cemetery sectors. There is also evidence in the contact-period documents and in the data from this project that the Colla region was eventually politically unified. If so, the story of the Collas will be that of how a defensive stalemate was overcome, and how warfare became a basis for consolidation rather than fragmentation.Additional benefits will result from this research. It will fill in gaps in the regional ceramic sequence with carbon dates, benefiting future studies. It records many previously unpublished sites that are quickly falling prey to looting and the expansion of agricultural areas. Finally, it will do much to clarify the prehistory of a very poorly understood region.