The Creation and Management of the Southwest Amazon: Landscape and Sociopolitical Organization in the Llanos de Mojos, Bolivia

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With the support of the National Science Foundation, Dr. John Walker will work with an international team of archaeologists, students and other stakeholders during two seasons of archaeological research in the Bolivian Amazon. This project compares settlement within agricultural landscapes and analyzes it as evidence for how society was organized. Every agricultural landscape reflects the local history and sociopolitical organization associated with its construction and maintenance. Debates about society, politics and agricultural intensification often focus on centralized control, leaving details of local organization understudied. At the largest scale, the organization of agriculture by a strong, centralized authority is reflected in a strong spatial pattern. At intermediate scales, agriculture is linked to settlements that correspond to the communities that organized agricultural labor. At the smallest scale, organization of agriculture is correlated with an atomized landscape, dominated by local conditions. To understand intensive agriculture, the focus must shift to the analysis of local spatial and sociopolitical organization. Mojos is a seasonally flooded tropical savanna in the Bolivian Amazon in which hundreds of square kilometers of agricultural features are still visible. Like many farmers around the world, Mojeños sculpted their landscape into fields, canals, causeways and mounds that improved soil conditions and controlled water. Over many generations, they built a variety of environments that both conditioned daily activities and were created by them. These landscapes were built incrementally, reflecting both the history and structure of farming societies.The project focuses on two study areas in Central Mojos, in a region of earthworks west of the Mamoré River, near Santa Ana del Yacuma. First, area excavations are used to examine settlement for evidence of communal activity associated with defense, ritual, and feasting. Second, on-the-ground survey, collection of diagnostic ceramics and test excavation is used to locate and define settlement within each of two agricultural landscapes. Finally, laboratory analyses are used to build ceramic chronology, reconstruct environment, and obtain evidence of the use of ceramics for cooking, brewing and serving.The intellectual merit of the project is threefold: First, it will help reorient archaeology towards to more comprehensive studies of the locations where individuals and groups carried out daily tasks. Second, this project is relevant to how agricultural landscapes were successfully managed (or not) over the long term. These archaeological landscapes are records of alternative ways to create, transform and manage resources. Third, by combining the archaeological record of settlement and agriculture, it contributes to the reinterpretation of the Amazon Basin as a network of anthropogenic landscapes.The broader impacts of the study include the development of an international research community. The project will continue to develop connections between institutions in the US and Bolivia including universities, national, departmental, local and municipal governments, museums and indigenous communities. Potential collaboration with institutions in Brazil and the UK will open a wide range of opportunities for both Bolivian and US students.