With National Science Foundation support Dr. Mark Aldenderfer will conduct two seasons of archaeological fieldwork in the Lake Titicaca Basin region of highland Bolivia. He will focus on the period between 5,000 and 3,200 years ago, a time interval during which populations abandoned a nomadic hunting and gathering way of life, developed a subsistence based on domestic plants and animals and established increasingly large settled villages. In the course of past research in the region Dr. Aldenderfer has conducted magnetometer surveys and located buried sites which span this time period. He will excavate three of these. In the process he will expose large horizontal areas which will allow determination of both group size and social organization. Analyses of both botanical and faunal remains will provide insight into the shift from wild to domesticated species. The team will employ new techniques in which identification of starch grains on stone tools used to prepare food compensate for the lack of macrobotanical remains characteristic of many archaeological sites.
The 'Neolithic Revolution", the shift from hunting and gathering to a more settled way of life based on domestic food species constitutes the most significant change in human prehistory. It provided the foundation which led to the rise of states and civilization. Archaeologists recognize that this transformation occurred independently, at roughly the same time, in many parts of the world and therefore believe the cause rests not in historical accident but rather a more fundamental process. Through the comparison of individual independent cases it is hoped that causal mechanisms will be revealed. In Old World centers of domestication such as China and the Near East, both plant and animal species were transformed. In the New World, with one exception, only plant species were involved. In the Andes, including the Titicaca basin, camelid species as well as plants were domesticated and therefore the region provides a potentially important comparative case. Archaeologists have postulated various causes responsible for this worldwide shift and currently, it is not possible to choose among them. Dr. Aldenderfer believes that as the result of his proposed work in the Andes, a selection can be made.
This research is important because it addresses a highly significant anthropological question. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and result in the training of graduate students.
