Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Warfare and Political Development in the Prehispanic Northwest Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Charles Stanish, Elizabeth Arkush will complete the analysis of data for her doctoral dissertation. She will use the NSF award to obtain radiocarbon dates for a suite of archaeological sites in southern Peru near Lake Titicaca. These sites belong to the Colla culture, a group that thrived in the Late Intermediate Period, around 1000 - 1450 AD, just prior to the Inca conquest of the Andes. The sites are all fortified, and they constitute some of the most marked evidence for warfare in the region from any time period. Ms. Arkush's project takes the extensive, heavily fortified region of the Collas as a test case to illuminate how premodern warfare shaped regions politically. Her doctoral research has involved the identification of about a hundred fortified Colla sites using air photos, survey of forty-five of these sites, and small-scale test excavations at ten sites. The goal is to clarify the effects of intense warfare on pre-state political power through an examination of the sequence of fort-building, site occupation, and site abandonment in Colla territory. Because the pottery sequence for the northern Titicaca Basin is poorly defined, radiocarbon dating is the best means to date these sites and others with similar pottery. Recent archaeological studies have revealed the surprising prevalence of warfare in prehistory, and anthropologists are now recognizing that warfare was a centrally important factor in power relations and social change throughout the long story of human societies. However, its effects were complicated and unpredictable. Pre-state warfare sometimes resulted in the emergence of complex, centralized polities, and sometimes prevented the political and cultural integration of regions. Both scenarios happened in the Andean highlands: empires like that of the Incas were built on conquest warfare, while in the hiatuses between these empires, chronic warfare often fragmented regions politically and socially. The proliferation of fortified sites and the breakdown of long-range trade networks in Colla territory suggest that here, warfare caused fragmentation. But other details from Ms. Arkush's research point to a more complex story, especially the sheer variety of fortified sites, from lightly defended to massively walled, from small, barely occupied refuge posts to near-urban centers with streets, residential compounds, and cemetery sectors. There is also evidence in the contact-period documents and in the data from this project that the Colla region was eventually politically unified. If so, the story of the Collas will be that of how a defensive stalemate was overcome, and how warfare became a basis for consolidation rather than fragmentation. Additional benefits will result from this research. It will fill in gaps in the regional ceramic sequence with carbon dates, benefiting future studies. It records many previously unpublished sites that are quickly falling prey to looting and the expansion of agricultural areas. Finally, it will do much to clarify the prehistory of a very poorly understood region.