The Origins of Ranked Society in the Northern Titicaca Basin

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，查尔斯·斯坦尼什博士和他的同事将继续他们的工作，研究贸易在安第斯山脉高海拔地区第一个复杂社会发展中的作用。在过去的15年里，这个由斯坦尼什领导的美国和秘鲁研究小组发现了一个由80多个主要史前定居点组成的环路，其中一些可以追溯到4000多年前，沿着一条今天仍在使用的贸易路线。对这些古代遗址进行系统、科学的分析，揭示了贸易在这一地区国家社会和城市生活起源中的作用。利用人类学和经济学的理论，这项工作将评估安第斯高原和亚马逊盆地之间的贸易在多大程度上是该地区第一个国家社会兴起的主要因素，即普卡拉。普卡拉从公元前400年到公元300年繁荣昌盛。多年来，考古学家们一直在争论，为什么人们停止了非常成功的狩猎和采集生活方式，这种生活方式在生物学上是现代人，持续了10万多年，在很短的时间内，发展了农业，城镇和城市，这些都是我们所知道的人类文明的标志。这种现象只在地球上少数几个地方独立发生，包括这个项目所在的安第斯山脉。这项比较科学研究提供了一些线索，说明过去和今天的人类城市社会是如何在环境和政治上具有挑战性的条件下进化和繁荣的。这项考古工作不仅帮助我们恢复了地球上丢失的文化遗产，展示了美洲原住民的伟大成就，而且为现代经济发展提供了指导。从农业系统到现代交通网络，这些考古数据定义了过去人类的成功适应，这些适应代表了数千年来进化出的最佳土地利用策略。结合美国国家科学基金会支持的独立古气候研究，这些数据提供了宏观区域水平上环境变化和人类适应的丰富观点。这些数据可以而且已经被用来指导该地区未来的发展。斯坦尼什使用区域考古学方法来定义史前土地使用模式。利用GPS技术、低空摄影和密集的地面真相调查，可以在该地区发现整个史前定居点。在加州大学洛杉矶分校科特森考古研究所的私人支持下，斯坦尼什和他的团队使用了各种分析技术，如黑曜石来源、中子活化分析和增强的GIS制图，以定义该地区几千年来的文化适应。这项工作汇集了美国和秘鲁的考古学和地理学专家，进行了一个综合的、系统的和长期的研究计划。它将直接处理世界这一地区复杂社会的起源，同时为我们关于古代国家政治和经济结构的全球数据库做出贡献。反过来，这些数据将用于创建、测试和细化早期状态开发、维护和崩溃的模型。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Charles Stanish and his colleagues will continue their work studying the role of trade in the development of the first complex societies in the high Andes. Over the past 15 years, this American and Peruvian research team led by Stanish has uncovered a circuit of over major 80 prehistoric settlements, some dating back more than 4,000 years, along a trade route that is still in use today. The systematic, scientific analysis of these ancient sites reveals the role of trade in the origins of state societies and urban life in this part of the world. Using theories developed in anthropology and economics, this work will assess the degree to which trade between the high plains in the Andes and the Amazon basin was a primary factor in the rise of the first state society in the area, known as Pucara. Pucara flourished from ca. 400 BC to AD 300. For years, archeologists have debated why people stopped the very successful hunting and gathering lifeways of biologically modern humans that lasted for over 100,000 years and, in a very short period of time, developed agriculture, towns, and cities, the hallmarks of human civilization as we know it. This phenomenon occurred independently in only a handful places on the earth, including the Andes where this project is based. This comparative scientific research provides some clues as to how human urban societies, in the past and today, evolved and thrived in environmentally and politically challenging conditions. This archaeological work not only helps us recover the lost cultural heritage of the earth and illustrates the great achievements of native Americans, but it provides guideposts for modern economic development. From agricultural systems to modern transportation networks, these archaeological data define the successful adaptations of people in the past, adaptations that represent optimal land use strategies that evolved over millennia. Combined with independent paleoclimate research also supported by NSF, these data provide a rich view of environmental change and human adaptation at a macroregional level. Such data can, and are, used to guide future development in the region. Stanish uses regional archaeological methodologies to define the prehistoric patterns of land use. Using GPS technologies, low altitude photography, and intensive ground-truthing, the entire range of prehistoric settlements can be discovered in the region. With private support from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, Stanish and his team use a variety of analytical techniques, such as obsidian sourcing, neutron activation analyses, and enhanced GIS mapping to define the cultural adaptations in the region over several millennia. This work brings together US and Peruvian specialists in archaeology and geography to conduct an integrated, systematic, and long-term research program. It will directly deal with the origins of complex society in this part of the world while contributing to our global data base on the political and economic structure of archaic states. These data, in turn, will be used to create, test, and refine models of early state development, maintenance, and collapse.