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Foreword The Bioarchaeology of Wari Imperialism Among the most interesting of the complex societies that arose in ancient South America was the Wari Empire, the first to emerge, rise, and fall in the Andes. During its reign from approximately AD 600 to AD 1000, this empire and the political forces that organized and maintained it had gained influence over a vast expanse of territory, certainly rivaling any other empire in size and scope in the New World and many in the Old World. Tiffiny Tung, one of a group of scholars with interests in the interface between biology and culture in archaeological settings, presents in this book her compelling investigation of the powerful influences of social and political forces on life in this remarkable setting. She accomplishes this via the study of mortuary traditions and the remains of persons who in life were players in the remarkably complex social,economic,and political Wari network. Tung addresses the overarching questions surrounding this extraordinary empire: How did the Wari pull off the building of such an extensive empire? What behaviors and actions did they employ to build and maintain the empire some eight hundred years before the rise of the later Inka Empire? Bioarchaeology—the study of human remains from archaeological contexts— provides an essential avenue for investigating these questions. In her study,Tung takes on the labyrinth of social and cultural data from this setting in particular and social theory in general to identify, interpret, and inform our growing understanding of Wari society. Following a comprehensive overview of theoretical issues regarding states and empires and a discussion of the Wari Empire, Tung presents key bioarchaeological analyses of demographic profiles and strontium isotope ratios from burials, placing the populations in context with regard to community organization. She shows that the heartland site of Conchopata was not a cosmopolitan center to which foreigners migrated but was instead an exclusive settlement comprising locals.She also applies an analysis of ancient mtDNA to document kin patterning and mortuary traditions in a selected series. Military actions, in addition to being well represented in a variety of icono- graphic representations, are evident in skeletal trauma and the analysis of trophy heads such as Tung uses in this volume to show that violence was sometimes employed in the expansion and rule of the Wari Empire by a political and ritual elite. Like many cultures around the world, the Wari were trophy-takers, using heads of victims as a marker of conqueror-vanquished interactions. Some of those conquered by the Wari were represented by their heads, which were integrated into elaborate rituals that showcased military achievements. In support of this model, Tung’s analysis of strontium isotope data provides clear evidence that most trophy heads were not from bystanders who had their heads taken. Rather, they were from those captives—usually men—taken from distant lands being conquered. This well-crafted integration of trophy, trauma, and iconographic data provides a picture of male behavior whereby the state and the individual acted together in creating a distinctive masculine identity in the heartland of the empire, an identity that was often in the service of state goals. The larger picture that emerges frames identity in several contexts: the individual , the military, and those responsible for ritual. Critical to understanding the policies promulgated by the empire is the centrality of two key classes, namely, a military class that conducted all matters of subjugation through violence and a ritual class that oversaw ceremonies and rituals that contributed to the rise, spread, and maintenance of the Wari Empire. This study is at the foundation of how socially, politically, and economically contextualized bioarchaeology contributes to an understanding of complex, imperialistic societies, past and present. Human skeletons provide a remarkably rich data set at the level of both individual and community. At the aggregate, population level, we learn how a state affected the lives of its players. Additionally , even while the remains of the deceased present a normative picture in the collective, they also present us with the variability of social and behavioral circumstances that contributed to shaping the lives, livelihoods, and conditions of those once living. As this study so well demonstrates, the integrative nature of bioarchaeology offers new perspectives for understanding key aspects of past social behavior,community organization,and the rise and maintenance of states and empires. This bioarchaeological investigation provides new opportunities and new directions for addressing fundamental issues and concerns in anthropology , underscoring the power of integrative science in developing an...

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