Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Prehispanic Sociopolitical Organization and Change in the Southern Andes: Complexity and Integration in the Tafi Valley (NW Argentina).

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Robert Drennan, Mr. Horacio Thames will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will conduct archaeological research in the Tafi Valley in the highlands of northwest Argentina. Located in the southern Andes, the region comprises an area of 180 sq. km. and work to date indicates habitation during both Formative (200 BC -AD 1000) and Regional Developments (AD 1000 - 1480) Periods. Scanty extant archaeological evidence reflect an intermediate level society. On the one hand settlement nucleation, public architecture and agricultural intensification indicate some degree of broad scale social integration. On the other hand however household and burial data suggest the absence of social hierarchy. Too clarify the picture, Mr. Thames will conduct a two stage project. In the first, he will survey the entire valley and identify and record sites - both architecture and surface scatters. Crews will systematically walk transects and location will be recorded with geographic positioning system instruments. Areal extent of finds and their nature will also be noted. Systematic surface collections - primarily ceramics - will be obtained to cross date sites and determine activities which occurred at them. Limited test pits will also be excavated. In the second stage selected sites will be examined in greater detail. Complete maps will be constructed and more extensive test excavation carried out. Mr. Thames goal is to understand the mechanisms employed to establish and maintain the relatively large scale social units which the Tafi Valley contained. The region presents a situation which, in terms of standard archaeological theory, is anomalous. While significant numbers of individuals were integrated into a single social system, evidence of political hierarchy and control, which one would predict to exist, is apparently lacking. Mr. Thames wishes first to verify that such, in fact, is the case and if so to understand the links which bound the society together. He suggests a heterarchical rather than single hierarchical system and believes that factors such as exchange of utilitarian goods, exchange for elite products and well developed ritual and ideological systems, each acting relatively independently provided the necessary "social glue." Through his mapping and excavation program it will be possible to reconstruct these systems and determine how they functioned. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide regional data of interest to many archaeologists. The social system, once understood may be potentially generalized and applied to analogous situations in many parts of the world. The project will also assist in training a promising young archaeologist.