A Bioarchaeological Reconstruction of Demography and Social Class

本研究的基本目标是深入了解大型政治实体（如帝国和国家级社会）如何将大量讲不同语言和不同种族的个人整合为集中的功能单位，以及这种整合对不同群体的个人产生的影响。通过使用考古资料，既可以追踪这些过程，又可以检查人类生物学的各个方面，这些方面可能难以用现存的人口来完成。在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，贝瑟尼·特纳（Bethany Turner）博士将开展一项为期三年的项目，分析秘鲁南部高地的考古人类遗骸。特纳博士将与她的秘鲁同事和他们的学生，以及她自己的学生合作，重建从印加帝国中心地带的三个地点找到的200多个人的饮食和迁徙模式。在不到一个世纪的时间里，印加人控制了南美洲西部的大片地区，并征服了大约1200万人。作为其统治策略的一部分，印加统治者强制迁移个人甚至整个帝国的社区——这一策略平息了零星的抵抗，将专家社区迁移到最需要他们技能的地方，并为军事行动和建筑项目提供了巨大的劳动力储备。它还转化为不同的饮食模式，疾病暴露，暴力和其他影响印加人健康和福祉的关键因素。因此，重建不同印加遗址的人口组成，对于更好地理解印加帝国主义是否影响了不同印加人的生活史，以及如果影响了，印加帝国主义是如何影响不同印加人的生活史的至关重要：估计谁被迁移了，从哪里迁移到哪里，以及为什么迁移，不仅可以提供他们的生活史的见解，还可以通过比较来了解原地人口的生活史。为了实现这一目标，特纳和她的同事将从每个人身上收集到的骨骼和牙齿碎片样本中收集到多同位素数据，以及代表遗传祖先方面的牙齿数据。这些数据将用于创建生命中不同阶段的饮食和居住的深度概况，并将其与每个地点内部和之间的遗传变异联系起来。此外，这些数据将与已发表和未发表的骨骼健康和疾病数据一起进行分析，使用特纳的新方法来更好地理解常见骨骼病理状况的原因。本研究的学术价值在于，它使用了多条数据线，在大量土著遗骸样本中重建了身份和生活史的各个方面，并使用以社会分层、资源不平等和古代治国方术为中心的理论视角来解释它们。这些数据也为梳理影响骨骼的压力源的不同原因提供了新的机会，这是生物人类学长期争论的一个领域。这项研究对考古学和历史研究具有更广泛的影响，特别是对复杂和城市化社会的研究。印加帝国就像过去和现在的其他国家一样，它站在人民的肩膀上，而大多数人民默默无闻地进入了历史。这项研究的重点是分析印加人的骨骼遗骸，为了解这个古老帝国的运作打开了一扇新的窗口。这项研究也为美国和秘鲁的学生提供了宝贵的研究机会。重要的是，这些分析的结果将传播给美国和秘鲁的学术和非学术受众，包括那些在现代秘鲁文化中经常被边缘化的印加土著后裔。

The fundamental goal of this research is to gain insight into how large political entities such as empires and state level societies integrate large numbers of individuals, often speaking different languages and of different ethnicities into centralized functioning units and the effect that such integration has on different groups of individuals. Through use of archaeological data it is possible both to trace such processes over time and to examine aspects of human biology which might be difficult to accomplish with living populations.With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Bethany Turner will conduct a three-year project analyzing archaeological human remains from the southern highlands of Peru. In collaboration with her Peruvian colleagues and their students, as well as her own students, Dr. Turner will reconstruct patterns of diet and migration in over two hundred individuals recovered from three sites in the heartland of the Inca Empire. In just under a century, the Inca took control of large areas of western South America and subjugated an estimated twelve million people. As part of their governing strategies, Inca administrators forcibly relocated individuals and even entire communities throughout the empire - this strategy quashed pockets of resistance, relocated communities of specialists to where their skills were most needed, and provided an enormous labor pool for military campaigns and building projects. It also translated to different patterns of diet, disease exposure, violence, and other key factors influencing the health and well-being of Inca subjects. Reconstructing the composition of populations at different Inca sites is therefore critical to better understanding whether, and if so, how the life histories of different Inca subjects were affected by Inca imperialism: estimating who was moved, from where, to where, and why can provide insights into not only their life histories, but those of in situ populations by comparison.To accomplish this goal, Turner and her colleagues will produce a combination of multi-isotopic data from collected samples of bone and tooth fragments from each individual, as well as dental data that represent aspects of genetic ancestry. These data will be used to create in-depth profiles of diet and residence at different points in the lifespan and relate them to genetic variation within and between each site. Moreover, these data will be analyzed along with published and unpublished data on skeletal health and disease, using Turner's novel approach to better understanding the causes of common skeletal pathological conditions.The intellectual merit of this study lies in its use of multiple lines of data to reconstruct aspects of identity and life history in a large sample of indigenous remains, and interpret them using a theoretical perspective centered on social stratification, resource inequality, and ancient statecraft. These data also provide new opportunities to tease apart the different causes of stressors affecting the skeleton, an area of longstanding debate in biological anthropology.This study has broader impacts for archaeology and historical studies, particularly of complex and urbanized societies. The Inca Empire was like other states, past and present, in that it stood on the shoulders of its people, most of whom passed anonymously into history. This study's focus on analyzing the skeletal remains of Inca subjects opens a new window into understanding the workings of this ancient empire. This study also provides valuable research opportunities for students in the United States and Peru. Importantly, the results of these analyses will be disseminated to academic and non-academic audiences in the United States and Peru, including to those indigenous descendants of the Inca who are often marginalized in modern Peruvian culture.