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（Alexander Menaker）将与秘鲁的同事沿着进行研究，探讨宗教和意识形态如何促进帝国增长并使之合法化，并调查帝国扩张和殖民计划对当地景观和人口的影响。尽管帝国主义意识形态主张绝对和普遍的权威，但最近的学术研究强调了国家和帝国试图对其地理边界之外的人民和领土施加控制的各种过程和关系。考古研究关注生活的物质条件，阐明了国家和帝国的局限性和地方表现，对国家和帝国的书面来源和绝对主张提出了质疑。考古学准备重建长期与国家和帝国的地方交往，追踪当地和非当地国家行为者和人口之间的复杂互动，从而也挑战还原二进制，如统治/抵抗，欧洲/土著和史前/历史分类。这项研究表明，考古记录沿着多方面的证据，不仅可以深入了解当地的现实，而且还突出了富有成效的方法来调查当地的经验和条件，往往被边缘化和土著，人口卷入更广泛的区域和全球进程。该项目促进当地社区成员之间的合作，沿着与秘鲁考古学家和学术界建立伙伴关系，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大意义的材料。该研究与理解当代国家维护和边界问题直接相关。通过本论文项目，Menaker先生和他的研究团队将对秘鲁南部安第斯山脉的Andagua和Ayo山谷进行考古和历史考察，调查当地的文化历史，并提供印加帝国和西班牙帝国的战略和影响，从公元1000- 1800.尽管对印加帝国的研究越来越多，但在秘鲁南部安第斯山脉印加帝国扩张的研究中仍然存在相当大的差距，而西班牙殖民主义在安第斯山脉的历史考古学目前是一个新兴的领域，很少有研究提供前西班牙和西班牙帝国对一个地区的影响的实质性比较研究。历史记载描述了印加人如何强化当地定居点，并在该地区建造新的遗址，将人口重新安置在专用于神圣火山和山脉的行政和仪式场所。安达瓜镇和阿约山谷是西班牙殖民地的缩减区，原住民被迫重新安置，周围环绕着大量前西班牙裔遗骸，为研究帝国治国方略的程度提供了重要的自然和建筑特征。该地区，但该地区没有受到系统的考古关注，学术研究也很少。这项研究提供了一个多标量，长期和比较的角度来看，当地的职业和文化习俗在该地区在前印加，印加和西班牙统治，提供原始数据和研究，通过使用多种考古现场方法，包括，全覆盖区域行人和现场密集调查，系统的铲测试坑和2x2米挖掘单位，和空间映射。将进行历史研究，以提供可以通过考古证据进行测试的长期区域进程的见解。

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.