Collaborative Research: A Bioarchaeological Approach to Identity in the Middle Horizon to Late Intermediate Period Transition in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

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Principal Investigators Christina Torres-Rouff and Kelly J. Knudson will examine the complex relationships between cultural and biological identity in the San Pedro de Atacama oasis of northern Chile during the unstable time between AD 750-1470. In the course of this period, individuals living in northern Chile's Atacama Desert endured the collapse of an influential foreign state, poverty, environmental decline, and the appearance of a culturally distinct group nearby, all of which may have affected how identity was portrayed in the body and the grave. The goal of the proposed research is to investigate the construction, projection, and manipulation of Atacameno identity during this tumultuous prehistoric transition using an integrative and multidisciplinary approach.This research project will address these issues during three seasons of data collection from 1,224 skeletal remains and their associated mortuary context housed at the Museo Arqueologico R.P. Le Paige in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile and bioarchaeological and biogeochemical laboratory and statistical analyses at Colorado College and Arizona State University in the United States. Given the size and depth of the sample, the proposed research will make substantive contributions to studies of identity, as well as advance methodological inquiries in bioarchaeology and archaeological chemistry. The broader impacts of this research project include the training of North and South American undergraduate and graduate students and a more general integration of research and education such that students will gain a full understanding of the research process, from problem formulation to data collection to analysis and interpretation, which they can subsequently apply to their own projects. By exploring the ways that cultural identity is used to create distinction, archaeology and physical anthropology can find contemporary relevance for societies experiencing social instability, environmental disruption and sectarian violence. Finally, the Principal Investigators are committed to integrating diversity into their education and research programs. The presence of two female Principal Investigators, one of whom is a minority, and the inclusion of both Chilean and North American students will help create a scientific community that reflects the global population.