Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Tiwanaku Residential Mobility and Archaeological Chemistry: Strontium and Lead Isotope Analyses in the South Central Andes

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Douglas Price, Kelly Knudson will collect data for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She will use archaeological chemistry to investigate the Precolumbian Tiwanaku culture, which existed from AD 500-1000 in the South Central Andes. The large and impressive site of Tiwanaku, located in Bolivia, was a religious, economic and political center that exerted influence over what is now southern Peru, northern Chile and western Bolivia. However, the nature of that influence is unclear and very controversial. More specifically, the relationship between the capital city of Tiwanaku and smaller sites associated with Tiwanaku has been heavily debated. While some scholars argue that these sites in southern Peru and northern Chile are colonies established by the Tiwanaku empire to gain access to valuable agricultural goods, others insist that these sites were populated by local people with religious or economic ties, but not political, ties to the capital. While archaeologists have tried to address this debate through various means, only archaeological chemistry can definitively identify colonists from the capital city of Tiwanaku in the proposed Tiwanaku colonies. Through a new technique that utilizes the strontium and lead isotope ratios in archaeological human teeth and bone, Knudson will determine where people buried at the proposed Tiwanaku colonies lived for the first 5 years of their lives. By determining the patterns of residential mobility at the proposed Tiwanaku colonies and their biological relationship to the capital city of Tiwanaku, Knudson will test the various hypotheses concerning the nature of the Tiwanaku polity. This research is important on a variety of levels. Since this powerful methodology is still relatively new, this dissertation research will help refine the use of strontium and lead isotope analyses in archaeology, and will help convince the archaeological community of its utility. In addition, this research will elucidate the relationship between the capital city at Tiwanaku and possible Tiwanaku sites in the hinterlands, and will help Andeanists resolve the debate on the nature of the Tiwanaku polity. Finally, because most information on imperial strategies comes from regions and time periods for which written records exist, this research on Tiwanaku heartland-hinterland interactions and imperial strategies will expand current knowledge on the role of residential mobility in prehistoric state development and maintenance. The work will also assist in training a promising young scientist.