Objective
Changes in the sociopolitical complexity of past societies are generally associated with shifts in subsistence strategies. However, the causal mechanisms are generally inferred rather than being directly measured. As a result, scholars of pre-Hispanic New World societies often disagree in the importance of top-down (hierarchical) versus bottom-up (heterarchical) processes driving such pivotal transitions. MONUFEAST will evaluate these posited and alternate scenarios in the Monumental Mound Region of the Llanos de Moxos of the Bolivian Amazon. Monumentality is generally considered an important indicator of high degrees of sociopolitical complexity, however archaeological research of such structures--particularly in lowland tropical settings--is difficult, logistically complex, costly, and time-intensive. MONUFEAST will focus on the largest such monumental mound in the Llanos de Moxos (Loma Cotoca), employing a novel combination of soil coring and 3D cross-hole electric resistivity tomography (ERT). Soil cores will be used to obtain both paleoethnobotanical data relating to paleoenvironment and subsistence, and edaphological data to determine the internal stratigraphy at cored locations. Each hole generated by the coring process will then be used to perform 3D cross-hole ERT (a first in archaeology) to extrapolate the soil layers to areas that were not cored. Since different theories of political development imply different sequences of events regarding the start of monumentality and transitions in subsistence strategy--and different material abundances of cooking wares and cultigen microfossils--a chronology of mound construction and subsistence can be used to falsify competing theories. The results will have significant impact to the descendent communities of the Llanos de Moxos whose identity strongly centers on indigenous histories. Moreover, the project will benefit the applicant in developing a macroregional, continental-scale perspective on social evolution.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
08193 Cerdanyola Del Valles
Spain