Foodways to Power: Diet and Inequality in the Titicaca Basin, South-Central Andes, 3.0–1.0 Kya

"FOODPOWER aims to enhance our understanding of the sociopolitical roots of food inequality and to identify foods that were stratified by emerging elites. The project will employ a series of bioarchaeological techniques and archaeological experiments to analyze human bones and ceramic sherds recovered from five highland sites in the Lake Titicaca Basin. These sites span over two thousand years of history, from the early village societies of the Formative period that existed from 3000 cal BP to the Tiwanaku society, the first expansive state in the Andes, dated around 1000 cal BP.FOODPOWER will investigate the hypothesis that the establishment of the state in the Andes resulted in stratification and unequal access to specific commodities, including camelid meat and maize. The fellow is an archaeologist-anthropologist specializing in Andean archaeology. He will employ a variety of methodologies—including bulk and compound-specific isotope analysis, lipid studies from ceramic vessels, proteomics, and statistical analysis—to investigate the emergence of so-called ""power foods""—those associated with restricted access and elite control— in the South-Central Andes.Through this project, the fellow will receive training and expand his research portfolio to include lipid analysis and compound-specific isotopic analysis, thereby enhancing the robustness of his research on the emergence of complex societies and the state in the South-Central Andes. This is made possible by FOODPOWER. Furthermore, he will strengthen his bioarchaeological expertise, effectively equipping him with cutting-edge methodologies and international experience that support an exceptional academic career."