Under the direction of Dr. Robert Drennan, Ms. Sarah Taylor will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will conduct archaeological excavation at the site of El Dornajo located on the Zarumilla River in southern Ecuador. El Dornajo very likely emerged as a political center between 500 BC and 1200 AD and provides a context within which to gain insight into the emergence of political complexity in the Andean region. This process led to some of the most complex prehistoric societies in the New World such as the Inka. El Dornajo is located in an environmentally transitional region between the tropical forests of southern Ecuador and the deserts of coastal Peru. It is also culturally transitional between the complex chiefdoms of the northern Andes and the expansive states of the central Andes. Traditionally the region has been seen as one in which inter-regional interaction played a strong role in social change. Interaction with adjacent more complexly developed polities and a position on a trade route between them may have allowed an elite governing group to emerge through control over the movement of products. However El Nino events which have a major impact on the western coast of South America may also have played a significant role. The prehistoric populations of the region would have been largely reliant on marine and mangrove resources and while El Nino events would have created conditions of subsistence stress for much of the population they would also have opened the possibility of agriculture in a normally arid area. As rainfall returned to normal low levels, farmers may have developed other techniques such as irrigation which set them on the path to social complexity.
To examine these alternatives Ms Taylor will conduct archaeological research at the site. This will include a staged program of surface survey, random sampling to recover artifact and ecofact assemblages, and excavation of the largest mound to assess the sequence of its construction and determination of the pace and timing with which this occurred. Finally small horizontal excavations will be conducted to look for inter-household variation.
This project will also further the training and career of a promising young scientist. It will include students from both the US and Ecuador and thus strengthen archaeological ties between these two countries.
