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

在Charles Stanish博士的指导下，Elizabeth Arkush将完成她博士论文的数据分析。她将利用国家科学基金会的奖金为秘鲁南部的的的喀喀湖附近的一组考古遗址获得放射性碳的年代测定。这些遗址属于科拉文化，这是一个兴盛于中后期的群体，大约在公元1000 - 1450年，就在印加人征服安第斯山脉之前。这些遗址都有防御工事，它们构成了该地区任何时期战争最明显的证据。阿库什的项目以科拉斯地区广阔的、戒备森严的地区为例，来说明前现代战争是如何在政治上塑造这些地区的。她的博士研究包括使用航空照片识别大约100个加固的科拉遗址，对其中45个遗址进行调查，并在10个遗址进行小规模的测试挖掘。目的是通过对科拉地区堡垒建设、遗址占领和遗址遗弃顺序的研究，阐明激烈战争对建国前政治权力的影响。由于的的喀喀湖盆地北部的陶器序列定义不清，放射性碳定年法是确定这些遗址和其他类似陶器年代的最佳方法。最近的考古研究揭示了史前时期战争的惊人普遍，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一个重要中心因素。然而，它的影响是复杂和不可预测的。建国前的战争有时会导致复杂的中央集权政体的出现，有时会阻碍地区的政治和文化整合。这两种情况都发生在安第斯高原：像印加帝国这样的帝国是建立在征服战争的基础上的，而在这些帝国之间的间歇期，长期的战争往往使地区在政治和社会上分裂。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，战争导致了分裂。但阿库什研究中的其他细节指向了一个更复杂的故事，尤其是各种各样的设防地点，从防御薄弱的到大规模的围墙，从几乎无人居住的小型避难站到有街道、住宅区和墓地的城市附近中心。在接触时期的文件和该项目的数据中也有证据表明，科拉地区最终在政治上是统一的。如果是这样的话，科拉的故事将是一个如何克服防御僵局的故事，以及战争如何成为巩固而不是分裂的基础。这项研究将带来额外的好处。它将填补区域陶瓷序列与碳日期的空白，有利于未来的研究。它记录了许多以前未公布的遗址，这些遗址迅速成为掠夺和农业地区扩张的牺牲品。最后，它将有助于澄清一个知之甚少的地区的史前史。

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.