Cornerstones of control: The infrastructure of imperial security at Vijayanagara, South India.

Abstract

Although anthropological archaeologists and historians have long recognized that militarism and warfare are frequently implicated in the rise, maintenance and decline of early states and empires, efforts to better understand the connections between organized violence and the development and decline of these complex polities are hampered by the relative infrequency of archaeological studies focusing on this important issue and the related problem of identifying unambiguous evidence of militarism and warfare in the archeological record. In this study, I attempt to address these problems through an examination of militarism and warfare in the context of the pre-colonial Vijayanagara empire, which dominated much of South India between the later 14th and early 17th centuries. Revealed as a highly militaristic polity in ubiquitous historical sources, the capital of this empire---the heavily fortified city of Vijayanagara---has also been a focus of extensive and ongoing archaeological research. Taken together, these extensive historical and archaeological materials have provided a rich context in which to situate the archaeological field data I collected on the extensive fortifications at Vijayanagara under the auspices of the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey. My analysis of these field data in relation to this rich historical and archaeological context suggests that material signatures of the kind commonly relied upon by archaeologists to attest to the presence or absence of militarism and organized conflict (e.g., walls, evidences of catastrophic burning, traumatized skeletal remains and pictorial representations) are generally heavily embedded in the broader landscape of the Vijayanagara capital. As such, important connections between these signatures and seemingly unrelated aspects of the historical and archaeological landscapes of the capital are often readily apparent. While most archaeologists attempting to address questions pertaining to issues of warfare and militarism do not have access to the rich historical contexts available for Vijayanagara, I argue that efforts to address such issues may be enhanced by examining potential signatures of warfare and organized violence within the context of other, seemingly unrelated aspects of the available archaeological record.