Social Dynamics of Early Formative Honduras: Excavations at Puerto Escondido (CR-372), Lower Ulua River Valley

洪都拉斯早期形成的社会动态：乌卢阿河谷下游埃斯孔迪多港 (CR-372) 的发掘

• 批准号: 9819550
• 负责人: Rosemary Joyce
• 金额: $ 5.17万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-04-15 至 2001-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9819550&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Social; Dynamics; Early; Formative; Honduras

This award permits Dr. Rosemary Joyce to conduct archaeological excavations at the site of Puerto Escondido, located in the Ulua River Valley in Honduras. During the construction of a housing project, bulldozers exposed an archaeological sequence which extended from Archaic through Classic periods. Although, unfortunately, the later part of the sequence was removed, the lowest Formative and Archaic levels were preserved intact and are easily accessible for excavation. Such occurrences are extremely uncommon in Middle America. Preliminary work by Dr. Joyce and her colleagues have demonstrated that the deposits are extremely rich and contain worked shell and jade as well as abundant ceramics and obsidian (volcanic glass) tools. Botanical remains, which provide insight into agricultural practices, were also recovered. Evidence indicates the presence of multiple dwellings on the exposed elongated mound (one of five) which forms the focus for the current research. Dr. Joyce will excavate at four localities identified during prior work. Because of the distances between each, it is clear that they are associated with four separate household compounds. The materials recovered will be analyzed to reconstruct subsistence practices and determine the degree of craft specialization among households as well as possible wealth and status differences among them.While archaeologists understand a great deal about how complex Mayan societies functioned, much less is known about the processes which led to their rise. The Archaic and Formative periods marked the shift from a hunting and gathering to a settled village lifestyle and established the base on which later complex states arose. To date research on the Formative has focused on the Olmec culture located in Southern Mexico. Puerto Escondido is important because it provides a chronologically identical yet geographically distinct situation and it should be possible to compare the two to determine whether trends observed in Olmec Mexico hold in Honduras as well. Through such analysis it should be possible to distinguish between general process and historical particular. The data recovered will increase anthropological understanding of the origins of social complexity and provide information of interest to many archaeologists.

该奖项允许迷迭香乔伊斯博士在位于洪都拉斯乌卢阿河谷的埃斯孔迪多港遗址进行考古发掘。在一个住房项目的建设过程中，推土机暴露了一个从古希腊时期到古典时期的考古序列。虽然，不幸的是，序列的后半部分被删除，最低的形成和沉积层被保存完好，很容易挖掘。这种情况在美国中部是非常罕见的。乔伊斯博士和她的同事们的初步工作表明，这些矿床非常丰富，包含加工过的贝壳和玉石以及丰富的陶瓷和黑曜石（火山玻璃）工具。此外，还发现了一些植物遗骸，可使人们深入了解农业做法。有证据表明，在暴露的细长土堆（五个之一）上存在多个住宅，这是目前研究的重点。乔伊斯博士将在先前工作中确定的四个地点进行挖掘。由于每一个之间的距离，很明显，它们与四个独立的家庭大院有关。考古学家将对这些材料进行分析，以重建生存实践，并确定家庭之间的工艺专业化程度，以及他们之间可能的财富和地位差异。虽然考古学家对玛雅社会的复杂功能了解很多，但对导致他们崛起的过程知之甚少。狩猎和形成时期标志着从狩猎和采集到定居村庄生活方式的转变，并为后来复杂国家的出现奠定了基础。到目前为止，对形成性的研究集中在位于墨西哥南部的奥尔梅克文化。埃斯孔迪多港很重要，因为它提供了一个时间上相同但地理上不同的情况，应该有可能将两者进行比较，以确定在墨西哥奥尔梅克观察到的趋势是否也适用于洪都拉斯。通过这种分析，应该可以区分一般过程和历史特殊性。 恢复的数据将增加人类学对社会复杂性起源的理解，并为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的信息。