Thomas Hardy
I am a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in the archaeology of the Pre-Columbian Andes of South America. I am currently working on completing my dissertation, provisionally titled “Culture Change, Colonialism and the Emergence of the Inca Empire,” under the direction of Dr. Clark Erickson. I conducted my dissertation fieldwork at the site of Minaspata, a large (~30 ha) multicomponent village located in the Lucre Basin, about 25 km east of Cuzco, Peru.
My research interests broadly focus on the subject of social complexity, and how complex polities mobilize social difference to create claims of authority and political subjects, particularly the intersections between power and politics, social interaction, and cultural change across space and time. My research explores the development of complex polities in the pre-Columbian Andes region, such as states and empires, through the lens of materiality and cultural practices. I am especially interested in colonial encounters, and I seek to investigate these interactions by focusing on how the groups involved negotiate new forms of social interaction and unequal power dynamics to create emergent identities and cultural practices, and how material culture mediates this process.
In my dissertation, I examine the emergence of the Inca Empire (1400-1532 CE) through the lens of the long-term regional development. Critically engaging with current models of Inca state formation, I argue that a full understanding requires viewing the rise of Inca imperialism as the culmination of more than a thousand years of regional cultural development. My primary dataset is drawn from excavations that I directed at Minaspata in 2013-2014, along with subsequent lab seasons in 2014 and 2015. I also use data from settlement survey, the built environment, and the historical ecology of the Lucre Basin, which I analyzed using GIS and photogrammetry. Of particular interest is the potential role that the earlier Wari state, which colonized parts of the Cuzco region from 600-1000 CE, played in this regional sociocultural trajectory. My research demonstrates that Wari colonization had different effects in the Lucre Basin than previously thought, and that some aspects of Wari ideology, material culture and state practices were maintained – albeit in “hybridized” form – by local ethnic groups during the 400 years between the collapse of Wari colonies and the rise of Inca imperialism. The Inca may have appropriated at least one of these state practices through their conquest of the Lucre Basin, which became an integral part of the Inca imperial project.
Other interests include examining the relationships between ontology, cultural practices, and social structures and interaction; the spatial analysis of landscape and built environment; ceramic analysis; zooarchaeology; the history of anthropological and archaeological thought; and the use of technology and digital media to assist in archaeological fieldwork, analysis, interpretation and presentation.
Supervisors: Clark Erickson
Address: Philadelphia area
My research interests broadly focus on the subject of social complexity, and how complex polities mobilize social difference to create claims of authority and political subjects, particularly the intersections between power and politics, social interaction, and cultural change across space and time. My research explores the development of complex polities in the pre-Columbian Andes region, such as states and empires, through the lens of materiality and cultural practices. I am especially interested in colonial encounters, and I seek to investigate these interactions by focusing on how the groups involved negotiate new forms of social interaction and unequal power dynamics to create emergent identities and cultural practices, and how material culture mediates this process.
In my dissertation, I examine the emergence of the Inca Empire (1400-1532 CE) through the lens of the long-term regional development. Critically engaging with current models of Inca state formation, I argue that a full understanding requires viewing the rise of Inca imperialism as the culmination of more than a thousand years of regional cultural development. My primary dataset is drawn from excavations that I directed at Minaspata in 2013-2014, along with subsequent lab seasons in 2014 and 2015. I also use data from settlement survey, the built environment, and the historical ecology of the Lucre Basin, which I analyzed using GIS and photogrammetry. Of particular interest is the potential role that the earlier Wari state, which colonized parts of the Cuzco region from 600-1000 CE, played in this regional sociocultural trajectory. My research demonstrates that Wari colonization had different effects in the Lucre Basin than previously thought, and that some aspects of Wari ideology, material culture and state practices were maintained – albeit in “hybridized” form – by local ethnic groups during the 400 years between the collapse of Wari colonies and the rise of Inca imperialism. The Inca may have appropriated at least one of these state practices through their conquest of the Lucre Basin, which became an integral part of the Inca imperial project.
Other interests include examining the relationships between ontology, cultural practices, and social structures and interaction; the spatial analysis of landscape and built environment; ceramic analysis; zooarchaeology; the history of anthropological and archaeological thought; and the use of technology and digital media to assist in archaeological fieldwork, analysis, interpretation and presentation.
Supervisors: Clark Erickson
Address: Philadelphia area
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