Interregional Interaction in Middle Horizon Peru

在国家科学基金会的支持下，贾斯汀·詹宁斯博士和一个国际团队的同事将在秘鲁高原的科塔瓦西山谷进行三个考古研究季节。 该项目将通过广泛挖掘Collota遗址来调查瓦里国家（公元600-1000年）的性质，Collota是一个靠近河底的瓦里影响遗址。 与更著名的印加帝国不同，瓦里没有书面记载。 我们知道瓦里的建筑和陶瓷风格遍布秘鲁，但国家与周边地区保持的政治，经济和社会关系仍然知之甚少。 为了更好地理解这些关系，挖掘旨在揭示科洛塔和相关墓地的陶瓷组合、饮食、太平间遗骸和建筑的数据。 然后将这些数据与从瓦里中心地带和其他地区受瓦里影响的遗址的挖掘中收集的材料遗骸进行比较。 例如，我们将使用中子活化分析来追踪用于制作瓦里风格陶瓷容器的粘土的来源。 这些数据可以告诉我们，山谷是否在当地生产精美的瓷器，或者人们是否从首都或省级中心获得这些瓷器。在另一个例子中，我们将使用碳同位素分析来追踪瓦里影响期间饮食的变化。 并入国家通常会导致男人、女人、孩子、富人和穷人的饮食发生变化，这些同位素数据，沿着植物遗骸，将帮助我们识别这些变化。 这些以及我们将通过挖掘恢复的其他数据集将有助于我们了解科塔瓦西人和瓦里人之间的关系。 瓦里国家的出现从根本上改变了安第斯山脉社会的进化轨迹。 我们的研究将有助于澄清历史上的这一关键时期，并解决重要的理论辩论，文化接触的复杂细微差别和区分仅基于考古记录的广泛的区域间互动的困难。因此，这项研究的结果具有学术价值，不仅因为它有助于澄清秘鲁史前史上一个重要时期的性质，而且因为它将在理论和方法上有助于研究早期国家扩张和政治经济。 这项研究具有更广泛的影响，因为它将提供一个联合州立大学学生，秘鲁大学生和科塔瓦西村民之间的文化交流。 在这次交流中，所有参与者将加强他们在考古学方面的培训，并进一步了解过去。 此外，该项目的一些设备将捐赠给秘鲁大学，这项研究的结果将用于我们与地方当局和探险指南合作，继续努力在科塔瓦西山谷发展可持续的考古旅游业。 该项目的成果将向学者和公众广泛传播。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Justin Jennings and an international team of colleagues will conduct three field seasons of archaeological research in the Cotahuasi Valley of highland Peru. The project will investigate the nature of the Wari state (A.D. 600-1000 AD) by extensively excavating the site of Collota, a Wari-influenced site near the river bottom. Unlike the better-known Inca Empire, there are no written accounts of Wari. We know that Wari's architecture and ceramic styles spread across Peru, but the political, economic, and social relationships that the state maintained with peripheral regions remains poorly understood. To better comprehend these relationships, the excavations are designed to uncover data on ceramic assemblages, diet, mortuary remains, and architecture from Collota and an associated cemetery. These data will then be compared with the material remains collected from excavations in both the Wari heartland and in Wari influenced sites from other regions. For example, we will use neutron activation analysis to trace where the clay was from that was used to make Wari-style ceramic vessels. These data can tell us if the valley produced its fine ware locally or if the people received it from the capital or a provincial center. In another example, we will use carbon isotope analysis to trace changes in diet during the period of Wari influence. Incorporation into the state often led to shifts in what men, women, children, the rich, and the poor ate, and this isotopic data, along with botanical remains, will help us identify these shifts. These, and the other data sets that we will recover through our excavations, will help us in understanding the relationship between the people of Cotahuasi and the Wari state. The emergence of the Wari state radically transformed the evolutionary trajectory of societies in the Andes. Our research will help clarify this pivotal period in history, and moreover address important theoretical debates regarding the complex nuances of culture contact and the difficulties of distinguishing between a broad range of interregional interactions based solely on the archaeological record. The results of this research, therefore, have intellectual merit not only because it helps to clarify the nature of an important period in Peruvian prehistory, but also because it will contribute theoretically and methodologically to the study of early state expansion and political economy. This research has broader impacts as well because it will provide a cultural exchange between United State university students, Peruvian university students, and Cotahuasi villagers. In this exchange, all participants will enhance their training in archaeology and further their understanding of the past. Further, some of the equipment from this project will be donated to a Peruvian University and the results of this research will be used in our continuing efforts to develop sustainable archaeological tourism in the Cotahuasi Valley in concert with local authorities and adventure guides. The results of this project will be disseminated widely to both scholars and the general public.