Dissertation Research: Architectural Patterns and Political Organization in the Prehistoric Southwest

在Stephen Plog博士的指导下，Mary Metcalf女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将参观美国的一些考古仓库，并研究考古学家在美国西南部发掘史前阿纳萨齐遗址的笔记和图纸。这项工作的目的是了解这些史前民族的政治和社会组织，以及他们的社会按照平等主义或等级制度组织的程度。为此，梅特卡夫女士将主要处理场地规划和场地结构描述。她将计算用于公共活动而不是家庭活动的建筑的面积和数量。她还将研究每一种建筑的建造方法和投入的劳动量。最后，她将检查公共区域的位置，以确定其进入受到限制的程度。涵盖三个地理区域、跨越几百年的大量遗址将被考察，通过比较，梅特卡夫女士将确定政治组织是如何随时间变化的。美国西南部的史前阿纳萨齐人没有文字，用相对简单的技术建造了由数百个房间组成的大型多层石头和土坯结构。他们的社会将成千上万的人聚集在一起，并修建了长途运输货物的道路。他们在干旱和不可预测的环境条件下完成了这项工作。考古学家希望了解使这一成就成为可能的政治和社会制度。到目前为止，他们还不知道中央集权的政治组织存在的程度。虽然一些研究人员认为，这种水平的发展可以在相对“平等主义”的背景下发生，但其他人认为，在这种情况下，这种成就是不可能的。梅特卡夫女士的研究应该有助于回答这个问题。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将增加我们对复杂社会如何产生的理解。它将为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的数据，并为美洲原住民文化的一个高潮提供新的亮点。它还将协助培训一名有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Stephen Plog, Ms. Mary Metcalf will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will visit a number of archaeological repositories in the United States and study the notes and drawings of archaeologists who excavated prehistoric Anasazi sites in the U.S. Southwest. The goal of this work is to understand the political and social organization of these prehistoric peoples and the extent to which their society was organized along egalitarian or hierarchical lines. To do this, Ms. Metcalf will work primarily with site plans and descriptions of site architecture. She will calculate the areal extent and number of buildings devoted to public as opposed to family activities. She will also look at methods of construction and amount of labor which were devoted to each. Finally she will examine the location of public areas to determine the extent their access was restricted. A large number of sites covering three geographical areas and spanning several hundred years will be examined and by means of comparison Ms. Metcalf will determine how political organization changed over time. Without writing and with a relatively simple technology the prehistoric Anasazi peoples of the U.S. Southwest constructed large multistory stone and adobe structures consisting of hundreds of rooms. Their society integrated thousands of peoples and constructed roads to move goods over long distances. They accomplished this in arid and unpredictable environmental conditions. Archaeologists wish to understand the political and social system which made this achievement possible. To date they do not know the extent to which centralized political organization existed. While some reseachers believe that this level of development can take place in a relatively "egalitarian" context, others believe that accomplishments of this kind are not possible in such a situation. Ms. Metcalf's research should help to answer this question. This research is important for several reasons. It will increase our understanding of how complex societies arise. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and shed new light on one of the highpoints of Native American culture. It will also assist in the training of a promising young scientist.