This Social, Behavioral, and Economic Minority Post-Doctoral Research and Training Fellowship examines the use of food in the codification of power differentials between individuals within the prehistoric Nasca (A.D. 1-750) on the south coast of Peru. In current Andean cultures, food is a powerful metaphor for social relationships and archaeological evidence suggests the same in prehistory. Differential distribution of food is assumed to be present in stratified state societies and absent in more egalitarian ones. Chiefdom level societies exhibit greater variation in this aspect; yet, none of the previous studies focus on a single society during its transformation from egalitarian to complex. The well-preserved and well-provenanced Julio C. Tello Nasca skeletal collection housed at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Arqueologia, e Historia del Peru in Lima, Peru provides such an opportunity. The collection includes skeletons from the inception of the Nasca culture as a series of relatively autonomous villages to that of a complex chiefdom to its subsequent incorporation into the highland Wari empire. This project will use stable isotope analysis of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in human bones and teeth to reconstruct aspects of each individual's diet. d13C values distinguish between maize- and potato-based diets, d15N indicates the amount of protein in diet, .13C indicates the source of protein (maize vs llama or guinea pig) and d18O indicates the region in which the individual lived. These stable isotope analyses of other prehistoric populations show intra-population variation in diets associated with gender and status. Higher status individuals and males usually have greater access to meat than do lower status individuals and females. Imperial hegemony also dramatically affects diets of indigenous peoples as evidenced by the imposition of the Inca on the Sausa of Peru, and the Spanish on the US southwest pueblos and southeast chiefdoms. Some complex societies, such as state level Teotihuacan, Mexico, and the Dakleh Oasis in western Egypt, include foreigners in their cemeteries suggesting enhanced trade, regional integration and imperial control when compared with earlier time periods. Increasing social complexity should associate with increased differentiation between the sexes and between higher and lower status individuals if traditional assumptions are correct. Increasing population aggregation and the construction of filtration galleries for crop irrigation in later periods is also expected to associate with greater consumption of maize. The advent of Wari imperial conquest of the region is expected to aggravate indigenous Nasca social differentiation. If the relationship was coercive, d18O values should identify the presence of Wari emissaries in the Nasca region; alternatively an absence of foreigners would support previous hypotheses of a special, non-coercive relationship with the empire. The collagen and carbonate extracts from 272 individuals will be prepared from both bone and tooth samples. The proposed research will include at least a two-month stay in Peru to collect samples and examine the newly published Tello fieldnotes regarding the status of the individuals buried in these Nasca cemeteries. Preparation and analysis of these samples will be done at the stable isotope laboratory at UC, San Diego. After the analyses are completed, presentation and publication of the results will be done in the US and in Peru. The proposed research will bolster research skills and solidify collaborations with colleagues in Peru, in preparation for an anticipated position within a research university. This project, under the supervision Dr. Margaret J. Schoeninger at UCSD, would continue the applicant's training in the only stable isotope laboratory supported within an Anthropology department in the western US. While the archaeological record of the Andes region is strong, few physical anthropological or stable isotope studies have been initiated thus far. The proposed research would broaden the picture of past lives in ancient Andean societies by providing a complementary data set. These data will add to the growing literature on the Nasca themselves, augment the cases for stable isotope comparison in the Andean region, elucidate the relationship between an imperial power and a conquered people, and enlarge our knowledge about the use of food as a vehicle for the codification of social differences in a complex chiefdom.
