The development of sedentary, agricultural lifeways represents a widespread evolutionary threshold in human prehistory. Exploring how and why populations made this transition is important to understanding some of the most fundamental aspects of human societal change. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Marc Bermann and colleagues will investigate the origins of village life and societal inequality at the site of La Barca, an village mound belonging to the Formative Period Wankarani Complex (2000 BC - AD 400), one of the earliest cultures of highland Bolivia.
A three-year project of excavation at the well-preserved site will expose domestic architecture (ranging from individual houses to distinct residential zones), and previously unknown types of ceremonial architecture. Fieldwork will center on broad excavation of a sequence of residential occupations dating from 2000 BC - 1300 BC. The excavation will generate data on changes through time in household life, domestic economic patterns, trade, and social ranking. Research will focus on addressing two questions: (1) what were the most important social units (individual family, extended family, lineage) at different points in time at La Barca? and (2) what activities (ceremonial, economic, social) served to distinguish households of different social statuses? The research will make an important contribution to the general issue of how the family unit acts to express the ambitions and needs of its members, while also adapting to wider social and environmental change.
The broader impacts of the research lie in the documentation of an longstanding agropastoral way of life (combining farming of native tubers with llama pastoralism) that has recently all but vanished from Bolivia, and in conveying this information to Bolivian students and public. Materials from the project will form the basis for exhibits at the regional archaeological museum in La Joya. The project will be conducted with the Bolivian national archaeology office (UNAR), and will assist in maintaining collaborative ties between this institution and American researchers. Because every American student on the project will have a Bolivian counterpart, the project will make possible training in archaeological field, laboratory, and curation techniques for roughly a dozen Bolivian students from colleges in La Paz and Oruro. The excavated materials will also provide collections for future Bolivian students to use for thesis research.
