Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Significance of Sunken Court Architecture to the Development of Sociopolitical Complexity

在查尔斯·斯坦尼什博士的指导下，阿曼达·科恩将在2002年夏秋两季为她的博士论文收集数据。她将在秘鲁的的喀喀湖盆地西北部的普卡拉山谷的三个形成时期（公元前1200年-公元300年）遗址的样本中指导挖掘工作。本研究将评估公共或仪式建筑在秘鲁南部的提提卡卡盆地复杂社会演变中的作用。在该地区的形成时期，稳定的定居点形成和增长过程发生了，最终出现了普卡拉政体（公元前200年-公元300年），这是安第斯南部地区已知最早的城市规模的社会。在后期形成时期普卡拉崛起之前，普卡拉山谷中居住着一系列的小村庄。正是在这种相互作用的自治村庄的背景下，公共建筑出现在早期和中期形成时期（公元前1200年-公元前200年）。这些社会进化过程与公共建筑的独特传统的发展和完善相平行，下沉的庭院与相关的表面结构，以及相关的企业陶瓷和雕塑风格。申请人在早期的一项调查中发现，在普卡拉山谷中至少有十几个遗址，这些遗址中有低矮的土丘，中央有矩形的洼地，几乎可以肯定地表明存在沉没的法庭。为了测试下沉宫廷建筑形式与日益增长的社会政治复杂性之间的关系，将对三个代表形成时期早期和中期阶段的遗址进行采样。由此产生的数据将追踪建筑和行为随着时间的变化在下沉庭院的地点。两种旨在解释早期礼仪建筑的社会意义的模型将被评估。第一种观点认为，随着社会越来越分层，仪式结构也越来越专业化。在这种情况下，早期的公共建筑通常与广泛的活动、仪式和家庭有关。然而，随着社会政治复杂性的增加，与公共建筑相关的活动范围仅限于仪式或礼仪活动。另一种模式是，公共建筑特征在其历史的早期是高度专业化的，随着时间的推移，随着社区的持久性和凝聚力在日常生活的实践中变得越来越制度化，这些特征变得不那么专业化。在这种观点中，公共仪式设施的社会整合功能在久坐生活的早期阶段最为重要。拟议的研究将通过对普卡拉山谷下沉庭院、其建筑形式和相关人工制品组合的历时分析来评估这两种模式。本研究对比较社会科学研究具有启示意义。此外，该调查结合了古生态和古气候数据，可能对未来的开发计划有所帮助。这个项目将为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的数据，并为复杂社会的发展提供新的线索

Under the direction of Dr. Charles Stanish, Amanda Cohen will collect data for her doctoral dissertation during the Summer and Fall of 2002. She will direct excavations at a sample of three Formative Period (1200 B.C. - A.D. 300) sites in the Pukara Valley of the northwestern Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru. This research will assess the role of public or ceremonial architecture in the evolution of complex societies in the Titicaca Basin of southern Peru. A process of steady settlement nucleation and growth took place during the region's Formative Period, culminating in the emergence of the Pukara Polity (200 BC - AD 300), the earliest known urban-scale society in the southern Andean region. Prior to the rise of Pukara in the Late Formative Period, the Pukara Valley was populated by a series of small villages. It was within this context of interacting autonomous villages that public architecture emerged in the Early and Middle Formative Periods (1200 B.C.-200 B.C.). These social evolutionary processes were paralleled by the development and elaboration of a distinctive tradition of public architecture, sunken courts with associated surface structures, and an associated corporate ceramic and sculptural style. An earlier survey by the applicant has located at least a dozen sites in the Pukara Valley containing low mounds with central rectangular depressions, almost certainly indicating the presence of sunken courts. To test the relation between the sunken court architectural form and increasing sociopolitical complexity, three of these sites representing the Early and Middle phases of the Formative Period will be sampled. The resulting data will trace architectural and behavioral changes through time at sites with sunken courts. Two models that purport to explain the social significance of early ceremonial architecture will be evaluated. The first suggests that as societies become increasingly stratified ceremonial structures become increasingly specialized. In this scenario, early examples of public architecture are normally associated with a wide range of activities, ritual and domestic. As sociopolitical complexity increases, however, the range of activities associated with public architecture becomes restricted to ritual or ceremonial activities. An alternate model is that public architectural features are highly specialized early in their history, and become less specialized over time as community permanence and cohesion become increasingly institutionalized in the practices of everyday life. In this view, the social integrative function of public ritual facilities is most important in the early stages of sedentary life. The proposed research will evaluate these two models through a diachronic analysis of Pukara Valley sunken courts, their architectural form, and associated artifact assemblages. The study has implications for comparative social science study. Additionally, the survey, combined with paleoecological and paleoclimate data, may be of some use to development programs in the future. This project will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and shed new light on the development of complex societies