Collaborative Research: Tropical Human Ecology, AgriculturalProduction and Prehistoric Settlement in the Jama River Drainage, Manabi Province, Ecuador

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Deborah Pearsall和James Zeidler将继续在厄瓜多尔北部的Jama流域进行合作考古研究。他们的工作主要集中在圣伊西德罗遗址，这是一个位于北部中心的大型土丘，可能是一个区域仪式和行政中心。该基地的规模和纪念性建筑暗示了过剩生产的存在，能够支持密集的人口。迄今发现的材料表明，圣伊西德罗是厄瓜多尔沿岸和海岸与高地之间对外接触和商品流动的主要地点。在他们的工作过程中。Zeidler和Pearsall对周边地区进行了调查，以确定较小的遗址和相关的农业特征。这方面研究的目标是将圣伊西德罗纳入更广泛的区域背景。目前的NSF奖励将允许该团队对最后一个调查区域进行行人调查，并完成调查数据和相关人工制品的分析。这些最后的步骤将允许分析区域定居模式，允许调查地点、规模和功能的时间变化，以及定居增长和社会转变的模式。这项研究很重要，因为它将对厄瓜多尔北部热带地区发生的人口增长过程、生存变化以及随之而来的文化复杂性发展提供新的见解。虽然这种复杂的社会在世界不同地区的热带地区多次出现，但其潜在的过程尚未得到很好的理解。众所周知，厄瓜多尔拥有丰富的史前遗迹，但很少有考古研究在那里进行。这个项目将有助于纠正这种情况。

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Deborah Pearsall and James Zeidler will continue their collaborative archaeological research in the Jama drainage in northern Ecuador. Their work has focussed on the site of San Isidro, a large centrally located earthern mound which probably functioned as a regional ceremonial and administrative center. The site's size and monumental architecture imply the existence of surplus production capable of supporting a dense population. Materials recovered to date suggest that San Isidro was a major point of external contact and commodity flow both along the coast of Ecuador and between the coast and the highlands. In the course of their work, Drs. Zeidler and Pearsall have surveyed the surrounding region to locate smaller sites and related agricultural features. The goal of this aspect of the research is to set San Isidro into a broader regional context. The current NSF award will permit the team to conduct a pedestrian survey of a last survey area and to finish analyses of survey data and associated artifacts. These final steps will permit the analysis of both regional settlement patterns, allowing investigation of temporal shifts in site location, size and function, and of patterns of setttlement growth and social transformation over time. The research is important because it will give new insight into the process of demographic growth as well as change in subsistence and the accompanying development of cultural complexity which took place in this tropical area of northern Ecuador. Although such complex societies arose in the tropics many times in different parts of the world, the underlying processes are not well understood. Ecuador is known to be rich in prehistoric remains, but little archaeological research has been conducted there. This project will help to remedy that situation.