Some possible topics for research posters

A brief (one or two sentences) description of your poster topic is due next Tuesday, October 28. It is OK to submit a fairly general topic that you plan to narrow down in the next week or two. However, the more specific you can be now, the less time you will spend exploring tangents.

Below are some suggestions that might point in directions that interest you. There are countless other topics you could choose. Flip ahead in the textbook or consult the index and bibliography for ideas and background on the stuff we have not touched on yet. For many of these, you would do some reading on the general subject and then pick a particular theory, debate, interesting case, theme, etc. to present in your poster.

  1. Controversial evidence for very early people at Pedra Furada, Brasil
  2. Controversial evidence of people at Monte Verde over 30,000 years ago
  3. Interpretations of Chinchorro mummies
  4. Interpretations of Initial period ceremonial centers
  5. Interpretations of the Nazca lines
  6. Did Chavín [or Moche, Nazca, etc.] iconography vary depending on the medium or type of object (metalwork vs. stonework vs. textiles vs. ceramics...), and if so, how and maybe why?
  7. How does Early Horizon evidence from the coast differ from that at Chavín de Huántar, and what might that mean?
  8. What do users of San Pedro cactus as a hallucinogen say they experience, and can that be related to Chavín art [or Initial period art, other art styles]?
  9. What evidence is there to suggest the functions of the Huaca del Sol?
  10. Was the site of Moche [also called Cerro Blanco] a city?
  11. What was the nature of Moche [or Inka, etc.] warfare?
  12. Interpretations of the sunken rectangular court tradition of the Altiplano [or of one or more specific sites such as Chiripa, Pukara, and/or Tiwanaku]
  13. How and why does the evidence of Wari influence on the north coast differ from that in the highlands?
  14. How did Wari [or Tiwanku] sites and settlement patterns differ from Inka ones, and what might that mean about the kinds of societies they were?
  15. Evidence of warfare in the Late Intermediate Period
  16. Interpretations of the site of Chan Chan
  17. The role of maize [or coca, or llamas, or chicha...] in Inka society [or parallels to modern Andean society as described in ethnographies]
  18. Correlating climate changes with prehistoric trends in the Andes
  19. Some examples of prehistoric impacts of severe El Niño events
  20. Interpretations of Inka human sacrifices on mountaintops
  21. How were Inka roads and bridges built and maintained?
  22. Efforts to understand how quipus were read
  23. The development of gold working technology [or silver, bronze, ceramic, weaving, tapestry, etc...] in the Andes [or in some region or culture]
  24. Any of many aspects of Inka architecture: functions, reconstructions, theories of how stones were shaped, moved, etc.
  25. Some aspect of ancient and/or current Andean agricultural technologies such as terraces, canals, or raised fields: archaeological evidence, how they were built, how they work, projects to rehabilitate ancient systems, etc.