Dissertation: Regional Settlement Patterns and Social Complexity in the Cinti Valley, Bolivia

在Marc Bermann博士的指导下，Claudia Rivera-Casanovas女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将对玻利维亚的辛提谷进行考古调查。这项研究的目的是深入了解史前安第斯社会的变化范围。这一地区既是当地动植物驯化的温床，也是复杂社会发展的温床。虽然最著名的是印加文明，但这种文明只是数千年来这类实体序列中的最后一种。考古学家注意到，类似的过程在新旧大陆的许多地区独立发生，并寻找了解释曾经规模较小的农业群体转变为更大、更复杂社会的基本组织原则。流行的理论强调社会等级制度的发展和权力在有限数量的个人手中的巩固。虽然这一过程可能确实发生在许多地方，包括安第斯山脉本身的部分地区，但西班牙早期定居者记录的一些民族历史数据以及考古信息本身表明，情况更加复杂，相对大量的个人可以成功地融入正常运作的社会和经济实体，而不需要建立复杂的集中控制机制。有人提出，在诸如辛提谷等地区，以亲属关系为基础的团体基本上是独立的，它们发展了合作的方法，不涉及由有限数量的人控制基本资源。Rivera-Casanovas女士将收集考古数据来重建史前社会制度的基本方面，以检验这一想法。她将对150平方公里的区域进行系统的100%调查，记录遗址的大小和分布，并收集地面材料。她还将进行流域分析，以确定人口分布与潜在农业生产力之间的关系。基于家庭规模和内容的变化，她将重建身份分化和政治集权的程度。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将提供一个鲜为人知的安第斯地区的数据，从而产生许多考古学家感兴趣的信息。它将为导致社会复杂性的过程提供新的线索，并有助于培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Marc Bermann, MS Claudia Rivera-Casanovas will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will conduct an archaeological survey of the Cinti Valley of Bolivia. The goal of the research is to gain insight into the range of variation which characterized prehistoric Andean societies., This region served as a hearth for both the domestication of indigenous plants and animals and for the development of complex societies. While best known for the Inca, this civilization was only the last in a millennium long sequence of such entities. Archaeologists have noted that a similar process occurred independently in many parts of both the Old and New Worlds and have searched for the underlying organizing principles which explain the transformation of once small scale agricultural groups into larger more complex societies. The prevailing theories emphasize the development of social hierarchies and the consolidation of power in the hands of a limited number of individuals. While such a process probably did occur in many places, including parts of the Andes itself, some ethnohistoric data recorded by early Spanish settlers as well as archaeological information itself, indicate that the situation is more complicated and that relatively large numbers of individuals can be successfully integrated into functioning social and economic entities without the development of elaborate mechanisms of centralized control. It has been suggested that in regions such as the Cinti Valley essentially independent kinship-based groups developed methods of collaboration which did not involve control by limited numbers of people over essential resources. MS Rivera-Casanovas will collect archaeological data to reconstruct essential aspects of the prehistoric social system to test this idea. She will conduct a systematic 100% survey of an area of 150 square km., note the size and distribution of sites and collect surface materials. She will also carry out a catchment analysis to determine the relationship between population distribution and potential agricultural productivity. Based on variation in household size and contents she will reconstruct the extent of status differentiation and political centralization.This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data on a poorly known Andean region and thus generate information of interest to many archaeologists. It will shed new light on the processes which led to social complexity and contribute to the training of a promising young scientist.