Doctoral Dissertation Research: Sources of Power and the Development of Sociopolitical Complexity in Malagana, Southwestern Colombia

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. Robert D. Drennan, Hernando Giraldo will carry out a program of intensive surface collection and test excavations at the Malagana site in the Cauca River valley of southwestern Colombia. The earliest written documentation of Cauca valley societies, dating to the sixteenth century, describes wealthy and powerful chiefs leading small regional polities engaged in intensive conflict with each other. These historical sources have inspired much generalization about the role of conflict and warfare in early complex societies. There is, however, very little direct archaeological documentation of the developmental trajectories of Cauca valley societies or the bases of chiefly power in them. Thus one knows little about the social forces that produced the situation described in the accounts of early Spanish Conquistadores. Tombs excavated at the Malagana site have often contained extremely elaborate offerings of gold, ceramics, and other materials, and these are often taken as evidence of considerable wealth accumulation by the community's elites. In an unusually conspicuous suggestion of conflict, the site is surrounded by a ditch and embankment which may have served defensive purposes. This research is important because it will contribute to understanding of the formation and maintenance of social inequalities and the nature of social power. The level of social complexity exhibited at Malagana is duplicated in many regions of the developing world today and through examination of an archaeological case where such processes can be followed across centuries significant insights can be gained. Mr. Giraldo will systematically collect artifacts available on the surface of the densely occupied residential zone associated with the Malagana cemetery and ditch feature. Analysis of these artifacts will enable him to assess differences in the nature and costliness of possessions in different households and in the nature and intensity of both ritual and productive activities carried out in different places. His mapping of the residential zone will delineate its relationship to the possible defensive wall and help to determine whether that is in fact its function. Such information will make possible an assessment of the importance of several potential sources of social power that have been suggested for Cauca valley societies, including wealth accumulation based on agricultural surpluses, control over specialized craft production, participation in long-distance networks of exchange of prestige goods, leadership in warfare, and manipulation of belief systems. The Malagana site provides an extraordinary opportunity to increase understanding of the ways in which early leaders gained and used social and political power, and of how these strategies were modified through time. The research will also have broader impacts. It will strengthen existing collaborative ties between U.S. researchers and those in several Colombian institutions. Its findings will be disseminated in national and international conferences and peer-review journal articles; the raw data will be available to scholars and the public online in the University of Pittsburgh's Comparative Archaeology Database. The field work will provide training to U.S. and Colombian students in archaeological field methods and in processing and analyzing cultural materials in the laboratory. The project will contribute to the local community's ongoing efforts to create an archaeological museum, combat the illicit excavation of archaeological sites, and enhance public understanding of the cultural and scientific value of archaeological remains.