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

在国家科学基金会的支持下，克莉丝汀博士和她的同事将对位于现代玻利维亚的喀喀湖西南海岸的塔拉科半岛进行三个季节的实地考古研究，研究塔拉科半岛政体。该国际团队汇集了考古学，地质考古学，植物考古学和动物考古学的专家，对早期和最长寿的安第斯国家Tiwanaku的起源和发展进行了协调调查。这座大城市对安第斯山脉中南部地区的自治领长达600多年，并在ACE 500左右巩固。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。 一种模式认为，这种发展是由精英阶层控制的大规模集约化农业系统资助的。 这一战略将聚集大量的主要产品盈余，用于支持纪念性建筑和公共仪式。 第二种模式认为，蒂瓦纳库的权力建立在控制大南安第斯地区的财富和大宗商品的长途贸易的基础上，这为建立仪式中心的劳动力集中提供了资金。第三种模式是重视当地的社会实验和策略，通过这些实验和策略，人们被引诱加入更大的社区。 这将通过追求嵌套超社区的发展，通过当地仪式和血统发展的证据进行研究。 塔拉科半岛政体是的的喀喀盆地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。在他们以前在半岛一个地点的工作的基础上，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时间阶段，从最早的定居点开始，直到附近的蒂瓦纳库将民众吸引到其城市扩张中。 从挖掘开始，该团队将使用宏观，微观和化学分析来完成一系列分析，以提供解决这三种模型的具体数据。 这些分析包括：1）识别作物和相关的野生植物分类群，以记录农业土地使用的变化，2）绘制骆驼类驮畜使用的图表和长途商队范围的证据，3）寻找和识别高地石头、亚马逊木材、药物和药用植物，以跟踪交换模式，发掘和绘制仪式建筑和相关的仪式文物，以描述公共仪式的精心制作。 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，建立和维护有关土著历史的小型区域博物馆。 最近，该盆地的考古和人种学工作激增，这将把研究结果置于更大的文化轨迹中，并澄清安第斯山脉高处大型政治实体的兴衰，也许可以更多地解释这种环境的长期可持续性。

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.