 Photo Courtesy Of Cody Kraatz
Students from Foothill and De Anza colleges uncover artifacts during an archaeological dig in Ecuador earlier this summer. High in the Ecuadorian Andes, just hours north of Quito, a team of college students studying archaeology spent a month this summer uncovering remnants of a mysterious culture that resisted the powerful Inca empire for nearly two decades.
Foothill College archaeology professor Sam Connell has led the Pambamarca Archaeological Project for seven years. Students from Foothill and De Anza colleges, including a Los Altos resident, participated in the dig.
The fortress walls, pyramid steps, pottery shards, weapons and human remains the students found suggest that the Cayambe and other pre-Inca cultures that populated the area built dozens of hilltop fortresses to secure their territory.
After 17 years of attempting to conquer the rebel peoples, Incan forces finally succeeded in the early 1500s.
The project’s current goal is to have the complex of dozens of hilltop fortresses near the city of Cayambe transferred from the tentative UNESCO World Heritage List to the official list, which could aid tourism in the impoverished rural region.
Through their work at three sites near Cayambe, the students learned that the thrill of discovering pyramid steps could be quickly replaced by the persistent ambiguity of work that allows for multiple interpretations.
“We’re not quite sure what to make of all this,” said Siobhan Boyd, a Toronto native and specialist in ceramics and human remains, of the mixture of Incan artifacts and pre-Incan construction techniques her team discovered on a windswept hill called Pukarito, or little fortress.
The fortress, or pukará in the local Quichua language, has a steep and easily defensible eastern side and offers a commanding view of the farms and villages to the north and west. Boyd, the staff member in charge of digging at the site, said that the pottery appears to be Incan because of its higher quality and finer craftsmanship, but the wall her team found was built with blocks of cangahua, a naturally occurring compressed volcanic ash.
Boyd said that the wall was not built by the Incas, because they were known for working with stone. Carbon-dating of materials like burned wood found at the site offer only vague dates, a range that includes the arrival of the Incas in the late 1400s and the collapse of the Incan empire starting in 1532, when conquistador Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa, the Incan king who controlled the northern part of the empire at that time.
The wall and a step pyramid uncovered during this summer’s work may have been built by the Cayambe but appropriated later by the Incas or by cultures loyal to the Incas, who were relocated to pacify the region, a common Incan imperial strategy. It may be years until the project can conclusively identify who built and used the various structures the researchers have found and those they may find in years to come.
For some students, the hands-on experience sparked an interest in further archaeological studies, but others learned they wanted to go in a different direction.
“Before I transferred, I wanted to make sure I was in the field I wanted to be in,” said Bobby Daly, a Foothill student and San Jose resident who decided he’d rather study U.S. history and political science.
Brian Ponganis, a Sunnyvale native and De Anza College student, and Jazmin Vargas, a Ventura native and UC Santa Barbara student, measured the stones.
Applied anthropology
The project also applies Foothill and De Anza’s service learning program through efforts to improve the situation of the existing communities and build a relationship with them.
“It’s about more than digging,” said Lauren Machado, a Foothill College student and Los Altos resident. “It’s about the community, getting the OK to dig in a site, letting them know that we’re not coming in to take everything, that we’re trying to let people know about their culture.”
It’s applied anthropology, Connell said.
“We don’t want to just be archaeologists, we want to be applied anthropologists,” he said. “You’re trying to apply anthropology to develop solutions to real-life problems.”
For example, one group of Foothill students bought two sewing machines for a group of 46 women from the villages around Cangahua, the town where the students stayed during their month in Ecuador. The women requested the machines because they are learning to make clothes to start small businesses, said Father Roberto Neppas, pastor of Cangahua’s Catholic Church.
Neppas said that they would begin by making clothing for the children, who are the most likely to become dangerously ill from the cold weather without warm clothes. Cangahua sits at approximately 11,000 feet.
“If we didn’t have the machines, we couldn’t do anything,” said Erminia Tugulinago Acero, coordinator of the women’s group and a resident of the small village of Carrera near Cangahua.
One machine is industrial strength and can be used to make tents or tarps, such as those that cover the pickup trucks that provide transportation here.
“A lot of students want to solve some problem or do something huge for the community,” Daly said.
However, what the students view as a problem “may not be a problem for them,” Daly said. “This year we focused on not imposing our values on them.”
Team members expected that the sewing machines and the sentiment behind them would strengthen the project members’ relationship with the locals, many of whom hope that the pottery and other artifacts retrieved from the sites will answer the lingering questions about the history of their region, which Neppas said could aid in the development of tourism.
For more information, visit www.pambamarca.net or the project blog at pap2009.wordpress.com.
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