Societal Collapse and Reorganization

  • Danielle Shawn Kurin
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Bioarchaeology and Social Theory book series (BST)

Abstract

The disaggregation of complex societies can have significant biological, social, and cultural implications for the people who emerge from such transformations. As society is reconfigured, communities, groups of people therein, and individual human bodies are both conceptually and physically altered. This study centers on the disaggregation of an enigmatic ancient Andean empire known as Wari, and two chiefdoms—the Chanka and the Quichua—that coalesced after Wari's collapse in what is now the Andahuaylas Region of south-central Peru. A social bioarchaeological approach is marshaled to comprehensively evaluate shifts in several key domains that would have been profoundly affected by archaic state collapse. Osteological, ethnohistoric, archaeological, ethno-bioarchaeological, and bio-geochemical methods are employed to test hypotheses related to mortuary practices and community organization, ethno-social identity, violence, medico-cultural innovations, migration, health, and diet.

Keywords

State collapse Societal restructuring Social bioarchaeology Andes 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Danielle Shawn Kurin
    • 1
  1. 1.University of CaliforniaSanta BarbaraUSA

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