A Lesson in Applied Archaeology
Table of Contents- Part I: Introduction
- A Team Effort of Scholars
- What are Raised Fields?
- Part 2: Recreating Raised Field Agriculture
- Part 3: Implications of the Research
- The Politics of Agriculture
- The Future of Applied Archaeology
- The Downside of Applied Archaeology
- Future Projects
- Spanish Language Version, Alvaro Higueras
Finding out that an archaeological study of the raised fields could have an applied component was a surprise to me. In the original proposal for my doctoral research, I had included a section in the budget (around $500) to do some "experimental archaeology." The idea was to rebuild some of the raised fields and plant them in native crops of the zone 1) to understand how the fields functioned to protect crops against the harsh altiplano environment, 2) to find out how much labor is involved in the construction and upkeep of raised fields, 3) to determine the level of social organization needed to plan, build and maintain raised fields (individual, family, community, state?), and 4) to get an idea of crop production possible using this form of agriculture. Since the raised fields had been abandoned and the technology forgotten, an experimental archaeology project appeared to be a good means of finding out some basic information about the farming technique. We were the first group to try raised field experiments in the Andes and the first to apply it in a small-scale rural development project involving local communities of farmers. Our small team was made up of Peruvian agronomist Ignacio Garaycochea, anthropologist Kay Candler, agricultural journalist Dan Brinkmeier, and myself. The real credit goes to the Quechua farmers of Huatta and Coata who actually did the experiments in raised field agriculture.
Thanks to the efforts numerous colleagues including Bill Denevan, Patrick Hamilton, Clifford Smith, Tom Lennon, Claudio Ramos, Mariano Banegas, Hugo Rodridges, Alan Kolata, Michael Binford, Charles Ortloff, Gray Graffam, Chip Stanish, Jim Mathews, Juan Albarracín, and Matt Seddon, our knowledge of prehistoric raised field agriculture in the Lake Titicaca region has grown immensely. Although this is probably the best-studied prehistoric agricultural system in all of the Americas, the specifics of raised field chronology, functions, social organization, and role in the origins and collapse of civilizations are still hotly debated.
