Under the supervision of Dr. Robert D. Drennan, doctoral candidate Sebastian Fajardo will conduct a settlement pattern study in the Sogamoso Valley of the eastern highlands of Colombia. The Muisca chiefs in this part of Colombia were broadly described by the Spanish conquerors who arrived in the sixteenth century as among the richest and most powerful rulers of indigenous northern South America. The archaeological record of these societies suggests considerable variability from one Muisca chiefdom to another in the nature and extent of their development. In particular, it has suggested that chiefs in the southern part of Muisca territory began to consolidate power over regional polities before 1000 AD, and that this power was founded on control of basic resources for intensive food production. This scenario fits with the idea that control of economic resources provides for the development of especially large-scale political integration under powerful leaders. In contrast, archaeologically known chiefdoms in the northern part of Muisca territory, seem to emerge later, and remained small in scale and generally less developed than those of the south. It has been argued that this demonstrates the developmental limitations of power based largely on feasting, social obligations, and religious authority, since the northern Muisca area lacks readily intensifiable and controllable agricultural resources.
Although the focus is on one past society the potential relevance is significant in a present day context. The underlying goal of the research is to gain insight into the factors which guide the development and maintenance of complex traditional societies which are characteristic in many regions of the world today.
The principal chiefly center in the northernmost Muisca area was at Sogamoso, and Spanish colonial accounts describe it as in important center indeed, focused on a grand Temple of the Sun presided over by a chief whose power derived from religious authority over a confederation of smaller polities. If accurate, these accounts suggest considerable scope for a rather different pathway to the development of chiefly power than that imagined for southern Muisca chiefdoms - a pathway based more on religious belief than on economic control. Except for excavations in and around the location of the Temple of the Sun itself, little archaeological research has been carried out in the Sogamoso region. The settlement study to be carried out by Mr. Fajardo will document the scale and nature of the human community surrounding the Temple of the Sun, at both local and regional scales. It will assess the extent to which a large-scale consolidated regional polity with a major central place emerged. This will make it possible to compare the largest and most impressive chiefly central communities and regional polities of the northern and southern parts of Muisca territory and assess more effectively their degrees of development.
The project will also have broader impacts. As dissertation research, it is vital to the training of the doctoral candidate. At the same time it will provide experience and training in field and laboratory methods to undergraduate archaeology students from several Colombian universities. It will present new archaeological information to school students and the general public by presenting preliminary results of the study in the Museo Parque Arqueológico de Sogamoso, a regional landmark for synergistic relations between academic research and contemporary communities.
Muisca chiefdoms in the eastern Andean cordillera of Colombia were described by the Spanish conquerors who arrived in the sixteenth century as among the richest and most powerful rulers of indigenous northern South America. The archaeological record of these societies suggests considerable variability from one Muisca chiefdom to another in the nature and extent of their development, and this provides a unique opportunity for comparative analysis of the factors involved in the development of early versions of the kinds of complex hierarchical societies in which most of the world's population now lives. In particular, it has been suggested that chiefs in the southern part of Muisca territory consolidated power by controlling basic resources for intensive food production. In contrast, chiefdoms in the northern part of Muisca territory have been seen to emerge later, and to remain small in scale and generally less developed than those of the south. It has been argued that this demonstrates the developmental limitations of power based largely on feasting, social obligations, and religious authority, since the northern Muisca area lacks readily intensifiable and controllable agricultural resources. Under the supervision of Dr. Robert D. Drennan, doctoral candidate Sebastian Fajardo conducted a settlement pattern study covering 123 square kilometers in the Sogamoso Valley in the northern part of the Muisca area. The survey revealed that sedentary occupation there began during the Herrera period (400 BC-800 AD) and consisted only of a few small hamlets and some scattered farmsteads. After 800 AD population increased dramatically, reaching a few thousand inhabitants. Three separate small chiefdoms emerged within the survey area. The largest was centered on the settlement at Sogamoso where the major Temple of the Sun described in sixteenth century documents was located, although the total population of this regional chiefdom numbered less than 1,000. Around 1200 AD, one of these three chiefdoms diminished as the other two (including Sogamoso) grew slightly. Overall population density in the region changed very little. The inhabitants of the valley lived on the best soils for agricultural production and avoided locations prone to flooding, but there is no indication of major construction efforts to increase production and no sign that chiefs gained wealth through agricultural or other economic activities. The results of the regional settlement study are consistent with documents from the time of the Spanish Conquest describing a chiefdom with its center at the Temple of the Sun, but its population was very small as was its territory. Small hamlets and scattered farmsteads only a few kilometers from the center do not seem at all drawn in toward it, and this is not consistent with early Spanish descriptions of a large and very powerful chiefdom at the head of a confederacy. These results provide support for the idea that religious rituals such as those that took place at the Temple of the Sun in Sogamoso can play a major role in regional political integration under chiefly authority. On the other hand, the very small scale and relatively weak centralization of this chiefdom is consistent with models ascribing the much larger size of southern Muisca regional polities and the greater power in the hands of their chiefs to their control of subsistence and craft production, since these are the elements that seem absent from the Sogamoso Valley. Beyond its contribution to the study of social change, this project has broader impacts. As dissertation research, of course, the project provided essential research training and experience for the doctoral candidate. It also provided training in archaeological field methods to 35 undergraduate and graduate students from universities in the United States and in South America. Radio interviews, public talks, and continual informal conversation during fieldwork kept the public in the region informed about the project, and its scientific goals, thereby enhancing appreciation of what can be learned from the archaeological remains in the region and of the value of protecting them from destruction.
