The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twenty-four-month research fellowship by Dr. David J. Goldstein to work with Dr. Luis Ramon Huaman at University Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru.
While most archaeological projects in the region incorporate methodologies to recover these materials, few paleoethnobotanical specialists participate in the majority of Andean archaeological research, leaving the majority of these materials unanalyzed. The host and PI are establishing a training program. This program teaches how to interpret the plant remains recovered from archaeological sites. Additionally, the PI is learning from the host's microbotanical laboratory at UPCH how to combine his macrobotanical expertise with pollen and phytolith datasets in archaeological research. Together with the students' field research, they are constructing a program of international and interdisciplinary cooperation in Andean archeological research. Most importantly, they are establishing a curriculum for further instruction and training personnel to can design and carry out their own paleoethnobotanical research programs using the extraordinary ancient plant remains available in the Andes.
This two year project is designed to also train and leave in place training facilities for ancient plant remains research in the Andes. Ancient plant remains, e.g., seeds, fruits, and wood, are the best evidence available for understanding human activities and ecological response across the human career. Paleoethnobotanists are archaeologists that use plant remains to interpret the agricultural systems, trade relationships, craft production, and food preferences of ancient societies around the world. The Andean region of South America, and Peru in particular, is home to some of the oldest remains of human civilization associated with the best-preserved plant remains in the world. To date no long-term training or established curriculum is available in the region to deal with these datasets.
