Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Coping with Collapse -- the Effects of Political Decline on Social Identities

在国家科学基金会博士论文改进基金的支持下，Ryan Williams博士和Nicola Sharratt博士将完成对Tiwanaku国家崩溃的考古研究，Tiwanaku国家是安第斯山脉最早的国家之一。公元600年左右，蒂瓦纳库人在玻利维亚的的的喀喀湖沿岸附近出现，在安第斯山脉中南部地区拥有文化和政治影响力。它在整个地区建立了殖民地。其中最大的殖民地位于秘鲁的莫克瓜山谷，距离州首府300公里。公元1000年左右，这个国家开始了漫长的暴力崩溃过程。蒂瓦纳库定居点的居民摧毁了国家权威的象征，烧毁了寺庙，并逃离了国家行政中心。尽管对蒂瓦纳库国家的出现和扩张及其暴力解体的原因进行了大量研究，但相对而言，很少有工作致力于了解崩溃如何影响社区自我认同的方式以及其中的个人。利用考古证据从埋葬，本论文项目解决了这个问题。它考察了崩溃后的社区在多大程度上继续维护植根于其蒂瓦纳库祖先的身份。它还探讨了在国家崩溃的情况下，社区内的身份（如性别、地位、职业和年龄）是否得以维持。为了做到这一点，该项目比较了蒂瓦纳库国家崩溃前后莫克瓜的墓葬。Williams和Sharratt在一个政治解体后使用的墓地中挖掘的墓葬与一个可以追溯到国家权力高度的墓地的考古数据进行了比较。莫克瓜山谷的干旱环境允许对通常会腐烂的木质和纺织品坟墓进行分析。对骨骼遗骸、陶器、纺织品、珠宝和木雕物品的挖掘和分析表明，尽管没有一个全面的蒂瓦纳库国家权威，但崩溃后的社区在很大程度上继续将自己认定为蒂瓦纳库。然而，在国家崩溃后，社区内部认同的其他方面似乎变得越来越重要。特别是，社区内的亲属群体使用丧葬仪式和物质物品来维护他们特定的群体身份。美国国家科学基金会的资金将支持该项目最后的重要阶段。它将支持对两个地点的墓葬进行放射性碳定年，使该项目能够确定这种显著身份转变的时间框架。它还将支持陶瓷材料的化学分析，通过该项目将确定在陶器形式和装饰风格上明显的工艺差异是否在工艺生产的无形方面也很明显。国家崩溃一直是考古兴趣增加的主题，但大多数研究集中在政治解体的原因和直接的政治后果上。人类学对社会身份的研究主要集中在身份与殖民势力或帝国扩张之间的关系。这个项目的学术价值在于，它通过借鉴这两个重要主题（崩溃和身份）来考虑相反的情况，并询问当一个压倒一切的政治权威崩溃时，身份是如何受到影响的。在当今世界，国家崩溃仍在继续发生，最近的种族冲突表明，身份认同和政治分裂以强大的、建设性的、往往是破坏性的方式交织在一起。了解社区对国家崩溃的反应，其意义远远超出了蒂瓦纳库州。该项目是与莫克瓜当地考古博物馆密切合作进行的，Williams和Sharratt参与了博物馆展览，并为社区制作关于挖掘和项目发现的信息传单。

With support from a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, Dr. Ryan Williams and Nicola Sharratt will complete an archaeological study on the collapse of the Tiwanaku state, one of the earliest states in the Andes. Following its emergence near the shores of Lake Titicaca, in Bolivia, around AD 600, the Tiwanaku held cultural and political sway over the south central Andes. It established colonies throughout the region. The largest of these colonies was 300km away from the state capital, in the Moquegua Valley, Peru. Around AD 1000, the state began a drawn out process of violent collapse. Inhabitants of Tiwanaku settlements destroyed symbols of state authority, burnt down temples, and fled from state administrative centers. Although considerable research has been undertaken on the emergence and expansion of the Tiwanaku state, and the causes of its violent disintegration, comparatively little work has been devoted to understanding how the collapse affected the way in which communities identified themselves and the individuals within them. Using archaeological evidence from burials, this dissertation project addresses that issue. It examines the extent to which post-collapse communities continued to assert an identity that was rooted in their Tiwanaku ancestry. It also explores whether intra-community identities (such as gender, status, occupation and age) were maintained despite the collapse of the state. To do this, the project compares burials in Moquegua from before and after Tiwanaku state collapse. Archaeological data from a cemetery dating to the height of state authority is compared with burials excavated by Williams and Sharratt at a cemetery that was used after political disintegration. The arid environment of the Moquegua Valley allows the analysis of wooden and textile grave inclusions that would normally perish. The excavation and analysis of skeletal remains as well as pottery, textiles, jewelry and carved wooden objects suggest that post-collapse communities largely continued to identify themselves as Tiwanaku, despite the absence of an overarching Tiwanaku state authority. However, it appears that other aspects of intra-community identity were increasingly significant after the collapse of the state. In particular, kin-groups within the community used funerary rituals and material goods to assert their particular group identity. NSF funding will support the final, important stages of this project. It will support radiocarbon dating of burials from both sites, enabling the project to determine the temporal framework of this shift in salient identity. It will also support chemical analysis of ceramic material, through which the project will establish whether crafting differences evident in pottery forms and decorative styles are evident also in unseen aspects of craft production. State collapse has been a topic of increased archaeological interest, but most of this research has concentrated on the causes and immediate political ramifications of political disintegration. Anthropological research on social identities has focused on the relationship between identities and the expansion of a colonial power or empire. The intellectual merit of this project is that it considers the opposite situation by drawing on these two important themes (collapse and identity) and asks how identities are affected when an overarching political authority collapses. State collapse continues to occur in the contemporary world, and recent ethnic conflicts suggest that identity and political fragmentation are intertwined in powerful, constructive and often destructive ways. Understanding how communities react to state collapse has relevance far beyond the Tiwanaku state. This project is being undertaken in close collaboration with the local archaeology museum in Moquegua, and Williams and Sharratt are involved in contributing to museum displays and producing informational leaflets for the community on the excavations and project findings.