Doctoral Dissertation Research: Religion and Empire, A Comparative Study of Inka and Spanish Imperialism in the Ayo Valley, Peru AD1000-1800

德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的亚历山大·梅纳克将与秘鲁的同事一起开展研究，考察宗教和意识形态如何促进帝国发展并使之合法化，并调查帝国扩张和殖民计划对当地景观和人口的影响。尽管帝国意识形态声称拥有绝对和普遍的权威，但最近的学术研究强调了国家和帝国试图通过各种过程和关系对地理边界以外的人和领土施加控制。考古研究关注生活的物质条件，阐明了国家和帝国的界限和地方表现，对国家和帝国的书面来源和绝对主张提出了质疑。考古学准备重建地方与国家和帝国的长期接触，追踪地方和非地方国家行为者和人口之间的复杂互动，从而也挑战简化的二元论，如统治/抵抗、欧洲/土著和史前/史前分类。这项研究表明，考古记录与多种证据一起，不仅能洞察当地现实，而且能为调查卷入更广泛的区域和全球进程的当地人口(往往是边缘化和土著人口)的经历和状况提供富有成效的方法。该项目促进了当地社区成员之间的合作，并与秘鲁考古学家和学者建立了伙伴关系，该项目有助于讨论文化遗产，并鼓励当地社区参与审议和保护对社区具有重要意义的材料。这项研究与理解当代的国家维护和边界问题直接相关。通过这个论文项目，梅纳克先生和他的研究团队将对秘鲁安第斯山脉南部的安达瓜和阿约山谷进行考古和历史考察，调查当地的文化史，并对公元1000-1800年间印加和西班牙在该地区的战略和影响进行比较研究。尽管对印加的研究越来越多，但关于印加帝国在秘鲁南部安第斯山脉的扩张的研究仍然存在相当大的空白，虽然西班牙在安第斯山脉的殖民历史考古学目前是一个新兴领域，但很少有研究提供关于前西班牙裔和西班牙帝国对一个地区影响的实质性比较研究。历史记载描述了INKAS如何加强当地定居点，并在该地区建造新的遗址，将人们重新安置在专门用于神圣火山和山脉的行政和仪式地点劳动。安达瓜镇和阿约山谷作为西班牙殖民时期的缩影建筑，被迫重新安置土著人民，周围环绕着大量前西班牙裔遗迹，呈现出重要的自然和建筑特征，可用于调查该地区帝国治国的程度，但该地区没有得到系统的考古关注，学术研究也很少。这项研究提供了一个多标度，长期和比较的视角，在前印加，印加和西班牙统治期间的当地职业和文化习俗，提供原始数据和研究，通过使用多种考古现场方法，包括全面覆盖区域行人和遗址密集调查，系统的铲子试验坑和2x2m挖掘单位，以及空间制图。将进行历史研究，以深入了解可以通过考古证据检验的长期区域过程。

Alexander Menaker, of the University of Texas-Austin, along with colleagues in Peru will carry out research examining how religion and ideology promote and legitimize imperial growth as well as investigating the effects of imperial expansion and colonial programs on local landscapes and populations. Although imperial ideologies claim absolute and universal authority, recent scholarship has emphasized the varied processes and relations through which states and empires attempt to exert control over people and territories outside of their geographic boundaries. Attending to the material conditions of life, archaeological research has illuminated the limits and local manifestations of states and empires, bringing into question written sources and absolute claims made by states and empires. Archaeology is poised to reconstruct local engagements with states and empires over the long-term, tracing the complex interactions among local and non-local state actors and populations, thus also challenging reductive binaries, such as, domination/resistance, European/Indigenous, and prehistoric/historic categorizations. This research demonstrates how the archaeological record along with multiple lines of evidence not only yields insight into local realities but also foregrounds productive approaches for investigating the experiences and conditions of local, often marginalized and indigenous, populations entangled among broader regional and global processes. This project promotes collaboration among local community members along with forming partnerships with Peruvian archaeologists and academics, with this project contributing to discussions of cultural heritage and encouraging local community involvement in considering and protecting materials of significant community importance. The research is of direct relevance to understanding contemporary issues of state maintenance and boundaries.With this dissertation project, Mr. Menaker and his research team will conduct an archaeological and historical examination of Andagua and the Ayo Valley in the Southern Peruvian Andes, investigating the local cultural history and offering a comparative study of Inka and Spanish imperial strategies and effects in the region from AD1000-1800. Despite growing studies of the Inka there remain considerable gaps in research concerning Inka imperial expansion in the Southern Peruvian Andes, and while historical archaeology of Spanish colonialism in the Andes is currently a burgeoning field, few studies offer substantive comparative research of pre-Hispanic and Spanish imperial effects on a region. Historical accounts describe how the Inkas intensified local settlements and constructed new sites in the region, resettling populations to labor in administrative and ceremonial sites dedicated to sacred volcanoes and mountains. Constructed as a Spanish colonial reducción, with the forced resettlement of indigenous people, and surrounded by significant pre-Hispanic remains, the town of Andagua and the Ayo Valley present important natural and built features for investigating the extent of imperial statecraft in the area, yet the region has received no systematic archaeological attention and little academic research. This research offers a multi-scalar, long-term and comparative perspective of local occupations and cultural practices in the region during pre-Inka, Inka and Spanish rule, providing original data and research through using multiple archaeological field methods including, full coverage regional pedestrian and site-intensive surveys, systematic shovel test pits and 2x2m excavation units, and spatial mapping. Historical research will be conducted to provide insight into long-term regional processes that can be tested by archaeological evidence.