Elizabeth Arkush

Elizabeth Arkush (PhD UCLA 2005) is an archaeologist whose research in the Peruvian Andes has emphasized themes of war and violence, and their connections to political authority, community, and ideology. She has been engaged in field research in Peru since 1999.

Her comparative approach to understanding warfare explores how relationships of hostility and alliance shape individual, community, and regional identities, structure settlement patterns, generate social hierarchies, and inform ritual and the performance of authority. A secondary theme lies in the intersection of paleoclimate, the progressive modification of lands for agricultural and pastoral production, and Andean sociopolitical histories. Methodologically her research relies on spatial technologies such as drone mapping, GIS analysis, and remote sensing.

Research Description

 

Pukaras of the Peruvian Titicaca Basin

This long-term program of research has investigated conflict, political organization, and social relationships in Peru’s Lake Titicaca Basin, synthesizing fieldwork on pukara (hillfort) sites with ethnohistoric information and GIS approaches. Defensive pukara sites became very common ca. AD 1300-1450, implying that people adopted different forms of sociopolitical organization and relationships to the land than had previously characterized the region. Several field projects have specifically addressed the regional spatial patterning, chronology, economy, and intra-community organization of large pukara settlements. They include survey and excavations at Ayawiri (Machu Llaqta) in 2009-2013, an intensive study of residential and defensive architecture at Pucarani in 2015, drone-assisted mapping of several other pukaras (2017-present). A current large-scale collaborative project uses satellite prospecting and GIS to expand the scale of analysis across the south-central Andean highlands.

Charting Andean Warfare in Space and Time

This ongoing study charts patterns in the severity of warfare over time and space in the pre-Columbian Andes by synthesizing defensive settlement patterns and rates of adult craniofacial trauma drawn from published studies by many archaeologists and bioarchaeologists. In combination, these lines of evidence indicate major peaks and lulls in the severity of warfare through time, as well as distinct coastal and highland histories. Resulting patterns are discussed in her 2022 book, and the cranial trauma dataset is archived on-line at the Comparative Archaeology Database.

Lake core biomarkers project

This collaborative project with Elliott Arnold, Mark Abbott, Josef Werne, and Aubrey Hillman took sediment cores from three lakes in the Peruvian Titicaca basin, and analyzed sedimentology, isotope ratios and organic geochemistry, including fecal stanol biomarkers from humans and camelids, to arrive at a picture of paleoclimate and changing populations through time. The Lake Orurillo core was particularly productive and has formed the basis of two publications (Arnold et al. 2021a, 2021b). Our results indicate a major drought interval in the early Late Intermediate Period, corresponding to other central and southern Andean climate proxies, and also indicate a major subsequent expansion of camelid populations, producing distinctive organic chemistry in lake sediments.

 

Courses

• ​Introduction to Archaeology
• Warfare in Archaeology and Ethnography
• Politics in Prehistory
• South American Archaeology
• GIS in Archaeology
• Theoretical Approaches in Archaeology (graduate seminar)
• Workshop on Publishing (graduate seminar)

 

Publications

Arkush, E., L. Kohut, R. Housse, R. Smith, and S. Wernke. 2024. A new view of hillforts in the south-central Andes: Expanding coverage with systematic imagery survey. Antiquity 98(397):172-192.

Arkush, E., W. McCool, and R. Smith. 2023. The Late Intermediate Period in the south-central highlands: Key problems in chronology. Quaternary International. DOI 10.1016/j.quaint.2023.10.002

Arkush, E. 2022. War, Spectacle, and Politics in the Pre-Columbian Andes. Cambridge University Press.

Arkush, E. 2022. Land use, settlement patterns, and collective defense in the Titicaca basin: the constitution of defensive community. Andean Past 13: Article 15 (339-367)

Arnold, T. E., A. L. Hillman, S. J. McGrath, M. B. Abbott, J. P. Werne, J. Hutchings, and E. N. Arkush 2021.  Fecal stanol ratios indicate shifts in camelid pastoralism in the highlands of Peru across a 4,000-year lacustrine sequence. Quaternary Science Reviews 270: 107193.

Arnold, T. E., A. L. Hillman, M. W. Abbott, J. P. Werne, S. J. McGrath, and E. N. Arkush. 2021. Drought and the collapse of the Tiwanaku civilization: New evidence from Lake Orurillo, Peru. Quaternary Science Reviews 251:106693

Arkush, E. and H. Ikehara. 2019. Pucarani: Defensive monumentality and political leadership in the late pre-Columbian Andes. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 53:66-81.

Ikehara, H. and E. Arkush. 2018. Pucarani: Building a pukara in the Peruvian Lake Titicaca Basin (AD 1400-1490). Ñawpa Pacha 38(2):157-188.

Arkush, E. 2018. Coalescence and Defensive Communities: Insights from an Andean Hillfort Town. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28(1):1-22.

Arkush, E. 2018. Climbing hillforts and thinking about warfare in the pre-Columbian Andes. In Engaging Archaeological Research: Case Studies in Method, Theory, and Practice, edited by S. Silliman, pp. 15-22. Wiley Blackwell.

Arkush, E. 2017. The End of Ayawiri: Abandonment at an Andean Hillfort Town. Journal of Field Archaeology 83:1-17.

Chacaltana, S., E. Arkush, and G. Marcone (editors). 2017. Nuevas tendencias en el estudio de los caminos. Ministerio de Culturo, Proyecto Qhapaq Ñan, Lima, Peru.

Langlie, B., and E. Arkush. 2016. Managing mayhem: Conflict, environment, and subsistence in the Andean Late Intermediate Period, Puno, Peru. In The Archaeology of Food and Warfare, edited by A. VanDerwarker and G. Wilson, pp. 259-290.  Springer.

Arkush, E. 2014. Soldados históricos en un panel de arte rupestre, Puno, Perú: Los caudillos del siglo XIX y el comentario político andino. Chungará 46(4):585-605.

Arkush, E. 2014. “I against my brother”: Conflict and confederation in the south-central Andes in late prehistory.  In Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places: War in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes, edited by A. Scherer and J. Verano, pp. 199-226.  Dumbarton Oaks Library and Collections. 

Arkush, E. and T. Tung. 2013. Patterns of War in the Andes from the Archaic to the Late Horizon: Insights from Settlement Patterns and Cranial Trauma. Journal of Archaeological Research 21(4):307-369.

Bongers, J. L., E. Arkush, and M. Harrower. 2012. Landscapes of Death: GIS-based Analyses of Chullpas in the Western Lake Titicaca Basin. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(6):1687-1693.

Arkush, E. 2012. Los pukaras y la poder: los collas en la cuenca septentrional del Titicaca.  In Arqueología de la Cuenca del Titicaca, Perú, edited by L. Flores and H. Tantaleán, pp. 295-320.  IFEA: Lima.

Arkush, E. 2012. Violence, indigeneity, and archaeological interpretation in the central Andes.  In The Ethics of Anthropology and Amerindian Research, edited by R. J. Chacon and R. G. Mendoza, pp. 289-309. Springer. 

Arkush, E. 2011. Hillforts of the Ancient Andes: Colla Warfare, Society, and Landscape.  University Press of Florida. (Winner of the 2013 SAA Book Award.)

Arkush, E. 2011. Explaining the Past in 2010 (The Year in Review). American Anthropologist 113(2):200-212.

Arkush, E. 2008. War, causality, and chronology in the Titicaca Basin. Latin American Antiquity 19(4):339-373.

Arkush, E., and M. W. Allen (editors). 2006. The Archaeology of Warfare: Prehistories of Raiding and Conquest. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.

Arkush, E. and C. Stanish. 2005. Interpreting conflict in the ancient Andes: Implications for the archaeology of warfare. Current Anthropology 46 (1): 3-28. 

Arkush, E. 2005. Inca ceremonial sites in the southwest Titicaca Basin. In Advances in the Archaeology of the Titicaca Basin, edited by C. Stanish, A. Cohen, and M. Aldenderfer, pp. 209-242. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, UCLA, Los Angeles.