Project description
Dining with elites: ancient Andean food power
Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the FOODPOWER project will investigate how the development of social hierarchies influenced food distribution and inequality in the ancient Andean highlands. By examining human remains and pottery from five key archaeological sites, the project aims to trace the emergence of exclusive food items such as maize and camelid meat. This study will cover a significant timeline, ranging from early tribal villages to the rise of the expansive Tiwanaku state. Using advanced scientific techniques such as isotope analysis and proteomics, FOODPOWER will explore how elite groups controlled access to specific resources to consolidate authority. Ultimately, the project’s goal is to illuminate the fundamental link between political complexity and dietary stratification in South-Central American prehistory.
Objective
"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."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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YO10 5DD YORK NORTH YORKSHIRE
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.