Collaborative Research: Residential Variability as an Indicator of Social Complexity in the Late Archaic (3000 to 1800 B.C.) in the Fortaleza Valley, Peru

在国家科学基金会的赞助下，Winifred Creamer、Alvaro Ruiz和Jonathan Haas的国际团队正在调查南美洲复杂社会进化的初始阶段。在美洲最早出现的文明之一的早期发展阶段，可以在秘鲁太平洋海岸的一小群山谷中找到，北奇科被称为北奇科。之前NSF支持的工作帮助确认了北奇科地区30多个主要仪式中心的存在，所有这些中心都在公元前3100年到1800年之间占据。该项目的学术价值将是通过关注北奇科地区这一古老职业的两个方面来检验关于经济组织在复杂社会起源中的作用的现有理论：饮食和社会地位。关于秘鲁沿海复杂的中央集权社会起源的主要问题之一是，在公元前3千年的饮食中，海洋资源(鱼类和贝类)与驯化植物(玉米、豆类、南瓜和水果)的相对重要性。为了恢复过去饮食的残余物，将在北奇科地区的两个地点对家庭住房进行挖掘。在这片沙漠景观中，垃圾得到了很好的保存，这些古老的房屋将产生各种各样的材料，可以用来分析重建饮食。其中包括植物和动物的遗骸，以及不太明显的证据，如花粉、植硅体(矿化植物遗骸)、淀粉粒和粪便(粪便)。这些遗骸将为重建人类饮食提供科学基础，并揭示驯化植物和海洋资源的相对重要性。该项目的第二个重点将是了解这些中心的社会组织性质。两个目标地点的表面迹象表明，可能存在三个不同的社会阶层：一个精英群体，拥有由精心粉刷和抹灰的石墙建造的大房间的正式建筑群；中等水平的房屋，其较小的房间是用石头、泥巴和甘蔗建造的；以及较低等级的临时房间，用甘蔗垫子建造。将在每个地点挖掘每种类型住房的样本，并将分析建筑和人工成果，以检查三种类型住房之间在活动和消费方面可能存在的差异。通过这项工作将回答一系列广泛的问题：不同类型的工具是否与一种类型的房子有关，而与其他类型的房子无关？有些家庭吃得更好，还是吃各式各样的食物？有些人一年四季都住在这些地方，而另一些人是季节性地来的吗？在北奇科的研究具有超越该地区历史的更广泛的影响。其最终目标是洞察人类社会是如何以及为什么成为社会分层和政治集中的。这些发掘将直接考察农业生产和海洋开发在一个新兴的复杂经济中各自扮演的角色，并展示社会是如何与不同的领导人和追随者群体一起进行社会排名的。

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the international team of Winifred Creamer, Alvaro Ruiz and Jonathan Haas are investigating the beginning stages in the evolution of complex societies in South America. Early stages of development of one of the first civilizations to arise anywhere in the Americas, is to be found in a small cluster of valleys on the Pacific coast of Peru, known at the Norte Chico. Previous NSF-supported work helped to confirm the presence of more than 30 major ceremonial centers in the Norte Chico, all occupied between 3100 and 1800 B.C.The intellectual merit of the project will be to test current theories about the role of economic organization in the origins of complex societies by focusing on two aspects of this ancient occupation in the Norte Chico: diet and social status. One of the major questions concerning the beginnings of complex, centralized society on the coast of Peru is the relative importance of marine resources (fish and shellfish) vs. domesticated plants (corn, beans, squash and fruits) in the diet of the 3rd millennium B.C. To recover the remains of past diet, excavations will be made in domestic housing at two sites in the Norte Chico. In this desert landscape refuse is well-preserved and these ancient houses will yield a wide range of materials that can be analyzed to reconstruct diet. These include remains of plants and animals, as well as less obvious evidence such as pollen, phytoliths (mineralized plant remains), starch grains, and coprolites (feces). Together these remains will provide a scientific foundation for reconstructing the diet of the people and revealing the relative importance of domesticated plants and marine resources.The second focus of the project will be to gain knowledge about the nature of social organization in these centers. Surface indications at the two target sites point to the possible presence of three different social ranks: an elite group with formal complexes of large rooms constructed of carefully masoned and plastered stone walls; a middle rank of houses with smaller rooms constructed of stone, mud and cane; and a lower rank of temporary rooms constructed of cane matting. A sample of each type of housing will be excavated at each site and the architectural and artifactual results will be analyzed to examine possible differences in activities and consumption between the three types of housing. A broad range of questions will be answered through this work: Are different kinds of tools associated with one type of house and not the others? Do some families eat better or eat distinct foods? Do some people live at the sites year-round while others come in seasonally? The research in the Norte Chico has a broader impact extending beyond the history of the region. The ultimate goal is to provide insight into how and why human societies came to be socially stratified and politically centralized. The excavations will directly examine the respective roles of agricultural production and marine exploitation in an emerging complex economy and show how societies come to be socially ranked with distinct groups of leaders and followers.