Prehistoric Craft-Specialization in Non-Hierarchical Societies

在国家科学基金会的支持下，凯瑟琳·斯皮尔曼博士和她的学生将分析从新墨西哥州中部萨利纳斯地区的三个史前晚期普韦布洛遗址挖掘出的大量陶瓷材料收藏。浆料和回火的化学分析将与表面设计的详细检查相结合。在此基础上，将有可能在大范围内重建陶瓷制造和交换系统，并确定这种变化是如何随着时间的推移而发生的。这项工作将对史前社会组织和导致复杂社会的过程提供重要的见解。考古学家指出，在世界许多地区，人口增长、人口向区域中心聚集以及手工艺专业化的出现之间似乎存在关联。有许多模型可以解释这一观察结果，最流行的一种模型认为，随着人口增长，食物可能变得更难获得，因此一些人成为手工艺专家，以易货贸易的方式获得必要的生存资源，如陶瓷。人口增长、聚集和手工艺专业化同时发生在美国西南部，作为多年实地工作的结果，斯皮尔曼博士开发了一个数据库，提供了这一过程的详细文件。通过她提出的分析，她将理清因果关系，并深入了解其中涉及的机制。这项研究很重要，因为它将提供许多考古学家以及美洲原住民感兴趣的数据。它将为复杂社会的出现和维持提供新的线索，并将有助于研究生的培训。

Spielmann With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Katherine Spielmann and her students will analyze large collections of ceramic materials excavated from three late prehistoric pueblo sites in the Salinas area of central New Mexico. Chemical analyses of paste and included temper will be combined with detailed examination of surface design. On this basis it will be possible to reconstruct the system of ceramic manufacturing and exchange across a large region and to determine how this changed over time. The work will provide important insight into prehistoric social organization and the processes which give rise to complex society. Archaeologists have noted that in many parts of the world a correlation appears to exist between population growth, population aggregation into regional centers and the emergence of craft specialization. A number of models have been postulated to explain this observation and the most popular argues that with population growth, food can become more difficult to obtain and therefore a number of individuals become craft specialists and barter goods such as ceramics to obtain necessary subsistence resources. Population growth, aggregation and craft specialization occurred concurrently in the U.S. Southwest and as a result of many years of fieldwork, Dr. Spielmann has developed a data base which provides detailed documentation of this process. Through her proposed analysis, she shall disentangle cause and effect and gain insight into the mechanisms involved. This research is important because it will provide data of interest to many archaeologists as well as Native Americans. It will shed new light on how complex societies emerge and are maintained and will assist in the training of graduate students.