Doctoral Dissertation Research: Biocultural Responses to Forced Resettlement

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

Throughout history, empires have adopted resettlement policies that forced their subjects to leave home and begin new lives in faraway lands. Forced or coerced migration remains a reality for many people today. The marginalized status of resettled peoples can make it difficult to study their experiences in both the present and the past. In ancient empires, most written accounts of resettlement come from the wealthy and powerful elites who wished to present their actions in a positive light, and forced relocation rarely leaves a clear material signature for archaeologists to study. Often, researchers have overlooked such basic questions as: how did people who were resettled adjust to their new reality? What challenges did they face? To what extent was resettlement violent? Bioarchaeology, the study of human remains from archaeological sites, provides methods and tools to gain insight into the daily life experiences of people relocated by states and empires. Since this is a doctoral dissertation research project this grant furthers the student’s academic and intellectual development. The project includes outreach to the local community. This project uses bioarchaeology to study the life experiences of one resettled community which was part of a larger process in which as many as 4,000,000 people were moved. The investigators collaborate with archaeologists to excavate parts of an associated cemetery. They employ bone geochemistry to identify who, among those buried in the cemetery, were most likely migrants in order to compare them to non-migrant individuals from the same site. They study indicators on the bones of excavated individuals to see if migrants experienced violence or high rates of disease, and if they changed their diets or forms of body adornment to conform to their new region. Comparing migrants to locals reveal what tactics were used to control resettled subjects and how resettlement shaped overall life experiences. The design of this project allows it to serve both scientific knowledge and practice by facilitating an international collaboration between women in scientific archaeology and promoting scientific understanding of state-directed resettlement within and beyond the Inka case study. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.