Doctoral Dissertation Research: Building Techniques and the Colonization Process

Spanish colonialism exploited urban forms and buildings as a primary means of social control and colonization. Yet the invaders arrived in a world already made, and they were dependent on indigenous labor to transform that world. In the early years following the invasion, Spanish clergy and administrators thus reused and adapted present settlements and buildings built under other rule. In one case colonial magistrates forcibly resettled over a million present residents into over a thousand planned colonial towns. The production sequence and social relations of the colonial-era built environment are not well understood, as current studies have tended to focus on the varied social effects of these resettlement projects or the relative characterization of specific stylistic and structural attributes. This project places archaeometric, geospatial, ethnohistorical, and art historical approaches and data in conversation with one another to address this gap and elucidate the diversity of the lived experience under colonialism. Through local student collaboration this project provides a unique opportunity to document building construction practices, materials, and architectural forms as well as co-produce built heritage knowledge in the field, in workshops, and at outreach events. The documentation of structures required by this project is also an important step in heritage conservation, as the buildings in question face a variety of threats from development projects currently underway and may not remain undisturbed in the years to come. This project focuses on one valley in which this process played out. The valley was an influential agricultural region before and after the Spanish invasion, and it boasts both a well-preserved historical documentary record and corpus of extant structures. The project collects data on change and continuity in the materials, building sequences, and contexts of construction from the Late Horizon and middle (colonial periods using a mixed methods survey approach. The targeted construction material sampling at six sites with well-preserved standing architecture complements previous seasons of fieldwork devoted to pedestrian survey, 3D modeling, and architectural attribute registry. Laboratory chemical analysis of collected building material samples such as plasters, mortars, and ceramic roof tiles reveal the raw materials, recipes, and techniques implicated in construction processes through the colonial occupational sequence. Understanding these changes reveals how colonial-era buildings, through processes of construction and maintenance, played a role in the mediation of Spanish colonialism on the local level. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.