Multi-Community Polity Formation in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Christine Hastorf博士和她的同事们将对今天玻利维亚的喀喀湖西南岸的塔拉科半岛进行三个考古季节的实地研究，研究塔拉科半岛的政治。这个国际小组汇集了考古学、地质考古学、植物学考古学和动物考古学的专家，对安第斯山脉早期和最长寿的城市提瓦纳库的起源和发展进行了协调调查。这座大城市统治安第斯山脉中南部地区长达600多年，并在公元500年左右得到巩固。为了研究这种状态的基础及其发展，研究人员将测试三个模型。一种模型提出，这种发展是由精英阶层控制的大规模集约化耕作农田农业系统提供资金的。这一战略将聚集相当大的过剩主要产品，用于承保纪念碑建设和公共仪式。第二种模式认为，提瓦纳库的权力建立在对整个大南安第斯地区财富和大宗商品的长途贸易的控制之上，这为建立仪式中心的劳动力权力集中化提供了资金。第三种模式优先于当地的社会实验和策略，通过这些策略，人们被引诱加入更大的社区。这将通过寻找证据，通过当地仪式和宗族发展来发展嵌套的超社区来进行研究。塔拉科半岛政体是在提提卡卡盆地出现的第一代多社区群体之一，在公元前250年完全出现。这个序列的开始似乎是在公元前1000年。在他们之前在半岛上的一个地点工作的基础上，这个实地项目将集中在另外三个地点进行挖掘。这些遗址跨越了这一政治发展的各个时间阶段，从最早的定居点开始，直到附近的提瓦纳库将民众吸引到其城市扩张中。在挖掘过程中，该团队将使用宏观、微观和化学分析完成一系列分析，以提供针对这三种模型的具体数据。这些分析包括：1)确定农作物和相关的野生植物分类群，以记录农业土地利用的变化；2)绘制骆驼背包动物用途和长途商队活动范围的证据；3)采购和识别高地石、亚马逊木材、药物和药用植物，以追踪交换模式；以及4)发现和绘制仪式建筑和相关仪式文物，以描述公共仪式的制定。该团队由美国、加拿大和玻利维亚的学生和考古学家组成，为玻利维亚的专业培训提供了重要来源，同时促进了国际合作。他们还与土著社区密切合作，建造和维护关于他们过去的小型地区性博物馆。最近，该盆地的考古和人种学工作激增，这将把考古结果置于更大的文化轨迹中，并澄清安第斯高地大型政治实体的兴衰，或许可以更多地解释这种环境中的长期可持续性。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Christine Hastorf and her colleagues will conduct three field seasons of archaeological research on the Taraco Peninsula along the southwestern shore of Lake Titicaca in modern day Bolivia, studying the Taraco Peninsula Polity. The international team brings together specialists in archaeology, geoarchaeology, botanicarchaeology, and zooarchaeology to conduct a coordinated investigation into the origins and development of the early and longest lived Andean state, the urban city Tiwanaku. This large city held dominion over the southcentral Andean region for over 600 years, consolidating around ACE 500. To investigate the foundations of this state and their developments the researhers will test three models. One model proposes that this development was funded by large scale intensive raised field agricultural systems controlled by an elite class. This strategy would have gathered in a sizable surplus of staple products, used to underwrite monumental construction and public ceremonialism. The second model posits that Tiwanaku's power was built upon control of long distance trade in wealth and staple goods across the greater southern Andean region, which financed the centralization of power over labor that built the ceremonial center. The third model privileges local social experimentation and strategies by which people were enticed into joining larger communities. This will be studied by pursuing evidence for the development of nested supra-communities through local rituals and lineage development. The Taraco Peninsula Polity was one of the first generation of multi-community groups to arise in the Titicaca Basin, emerging fully by 250 BCE. The beginning of this sequence seems to be at 1000 BCE. Building on their previous work at a site on the Peninsula, this field project will concentrate excavation at three additional sites. These sites span the time phases of this political development, beginning with the earliest settlements on up to when the nearby Tiwanaku drew the populace into its urban sprawl. From the excavations, the team will complete a series of analyses using macro, micro, and chemical analyses to provide concrete data that addresses these three models. These analyses include: 1) identification of crops and associated wild plant taxa to record the agricultural land use changes, 2) charting camelid pack animal use and evidence for the extent of long distance caravans, 3) sourcing and identifying highland stone, Amazonian wood, drug and medicinal plants to track the exchange patterns, and 4) uncovering and mapping ceremonial architecture and associated ritual artifacts to describe the elaboration of communal rituals. The team consists of US, Canadian and Bolivian students and archaeologists, providing an important source for professional training in Bolivia while promoting international collaboration. They also work closely with indigenous communities in building and maintaining small regional museums about their past. There has been a recent surge of archaeological and ethnographic work in the Basin which will place the results within a larger cultural trajectory and clarify the rise and fall of large political entities in the high Andes, perhaps explaining more about long-term sustainability in such environments.