Dissertation Research: The Influence of Cooperative and Competitive Behavior on the Evolution of the Chaco Anasazi of the American Southwest

在Katharina Schreiber博士的指导下，John Kantner先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。他希望解决一个人类学的核心问题，即复杂的社会是如何产生的。由于这一现象在世界许多地方都被观察到，而且似乎在每一个地方都是独立发生的，因此，对这一过程的理解应该会增加我们对社会组织和社会变革的基本原则的理解。对美国西南部史前史的大量研究表明，随着时间的推移，小型平等主义群体的规模不断扩大，并转变为社会分层的等级社会。人类学家提出了几种假说来解释这一过程。有一套理论侧重于“适应”原则，认为这种发展是应对不断变化和不可预测的环境的一种手段。另一种观点认为，这是政治竞争的结果，在这种竞争中，对立的团体努力增加自己的权力，互相牺牲。 Kantner先生认为，在区域系统而不是单个考古遗址的层面上审查这个问题最为有效，而且最常采用的是后一种方法。他为新墨西哥州的查科阿纳萨齐地区建立了一个数据库，对每个模型预测的模式进行了假设，目前正在利用地理信息系统分析来研究大量的材料。NSF的支持将通过对从一系列地点选择的陶瓷材料进行化学分析来补充这项研究。重要的是要了解查科定居点是否被纳入一个更大的合作单位，或者它们之间的竞争是否是常态。通过成分分析，可以确定粘土的来源，并在此基础上确定相互作用的相对程度。 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发展的理解，并为美国的史前史提供新的线索。它还将协助培养一名有前途的青年科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Katharina Schreiber, Mr. John Kantner will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He wishes to address a central anthropological question of how complex societies arise. Since this phenomenon has been observed in many parts of the world and appears to have occurred independently in each, understanding of this process should increase our understanding of the basic principles which underly social organization and social change. Considerable research on the prehistory of the Southwestern United States has shown that over time small egalitarian groups increased in size and transformed into socially stratified hierarchical societies. Anthropologists have offered several hypotheses to explain this process. One set of theories focus on the principle of `adaptation` and see this development as a means to respond to a changing and unpredictable environment. Another set envisions this outcome as the result of political competition in which opposing groups work to increase their own power each other's expense. Mr. Kantner argues that this question can most effectively be examined at the level of regional system rather than individual archaeological site and it is this latter approach which has most often been employed. He has constructed a data base for the Chaco Anasazi area of New Mexico, has hypothesized the patterns predicted by each model and is currently employing GIS analysis to study a large body of material. NSF support will supplement this research through the chemical analysis of ceramic materials selected from a series of sites. It is important to understand whether or not the Chaco settlements were integrated into a larger cooperative unit or whether competition among them was the norm. Through compositional analysis it is possible to determine the sources of clay and on this basis determine the relative degree of interaction. This research is important for several reasons. It will increase our understanding of how complex societies develop and shed new light on the prehistory of the United States. It will also assist in training a promising young scientist.