Doctoral Dissertation Research Award: Social Interaction As Determined Through Spatial And Technological Analysis

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Kayeleigh Sharp of the Southern Illinois University together with an American and Peruvian colleagues will undertake research to elucidate the nature of relationships between two populations that coexisted in time and space on the north coast of Peru. Previous studies have suggested various possible scenarios, from the dominance of one entity which forced the other into a subordinate social position, to the possibility that two ethnically distinct populations each maintained social and political autonomy over time. How would the nature of such interrelationships manifest in visible material culture including style of their artifacts? What social mechanisms might have enabled such long-standing coexistence? These questions are relevant to contemporary global issues of social asymmetry and ethnic interrelationships. Their investigation will include the exploration of various analytical perspectives and lines of evidence, with emphasis on the social, cultural and situational factors that influence organization and location of activities and choices people make in manufacturing and using artifacts, or technological choices. Archaeology is well positioned to study material culture, particularly ceramics, and analyze how people created and organized in space their quotidian activities by means of qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis. Their daily practices will elucidate how these two populations saw themselves and inform on their relationships to each other. Integrated spatial analyses that explore patterned differences in the archaeological record, will yield better understanding of the physical dimensions of their social interrelationships and coexistence.Researchers will examine how technological choices and activity patterns are related spatially, and explore how the relationship between people and things contributed to the formation of archaeological identities and social interrelationships. The research will be conducted in the residential sector of the first-millennium Songoy-Cojal site situated in the mid-Zaña Valley, which is accessible to some of the north coast's most important monumental tombs and urban centers. In this small valley, coexisting Gallinazo and Mochica artifacts present the opportunity to study various types of social interrelationships that were in place. The researcher and her team consisting of one American and a small number of Peruvian archaeologists from a local university will undertake the in-depth study of rural households to elucidate the nature of relationships in this understudied region. At present, no in-depth effort of this kind has been put forth to resolve long-standing debates. With the integration of established methods borrowed from computer science and geographical information sciences, these interdisciplinary datasets will increase understanding of Gallinazo and Mochica coexistence. This work constitutes a major departure from traditional studies that long relied on funerary and stylistic data. As an alternative to such traditional types of technological and activity analysis, the investigation will make a significant contribution to the analytical toolkit for studying social asymmetries and the axes of social differentiation in archaeological contexts.