Cerro Baul, Upper Moquegua Valley, Peru

Analysis of Food, Politics, and Colonialism on the Wari Frontier at the Site of Cerro Baul in the Upper Moquegua Valley, Peru

Matthew Biwer has been assisting Dr. Donna Nash (UNCG) with archaeological excavations and paleoethnobotanical analysis from Middle Horizon Wari sites in the Moquegua Valley, Peru since 2009.  Using macrobotanical plant remains, his analysis focuses on the role food and foodways played in colonialism and the creation and maintenance of imperial identity the southern frontier of the Wari Empire (600-1000A.D.).  As group identity and membership is never more important than when on the frontier, Biwer argues that food and feasting at Cerro Baul, a Wari site located atop a local spiritual entity called an apu, were an essential means for Wari leaders to reaffirm and maintain a collective Wari identity and legitimize their colonial presence so far from the heartland.

Analysis of Late Woodland Plant Remains from the Myer-Dickson Site, Central Illinois River Valley

Matthew Biwer has been engaged in the analysis of Late Woodland (500-1000A.D.) paleoethnobotanical remains from the Myer-Dickson site, located in the Central Illinois River Valley of Western Illinois.  His project focuses on the cultivation of native starchy plants in the Illinois River and American Bottom regions including goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandderi), maygrass (Phalaris carolina), little barley (Hordeum pussilium), and erect knotweed (Polygonum erectum). Using macrobotanical analysis to compare Myer-Dickson to sites located in southern and west-central Illinois during the Middle to Late Woodland transition, he considers the environmental, evolutionary, and cultural selection processes that influenced the range and intensity of cultivation of these native domesticates.