The Prehispanic 'Fossilized' Canal Systems of the Tehuacan Valley, Puebla, Mexico: Their Distribution, Chronology, and Environmental Context

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，James Neely博士和合作者将重建位于墨西哥中部特瓦坎山谷的史前运河系统。考古学家希望了解导致复杂社会的过程，因为水管理系统发挥了重要作用，所以他们将重点放在水管理系统上。在世界上许多早期文明出现的地区，降雨量不足以进行大规模可靠的农业，为了满足生存需要，建造了广泛的运河系统。这种大型的劳动密集型项目需要许多人以协调的方式一起工作。大型系统需要广泛的规划，而有关土地和水资源分配的决策需要某种形式的中央控制。因此，考古学家认为，在许多地方，运河灌溉与大规模社会和中央集权的政府和经济体系的发展密切相关。一系列早期的国家和帝国，包括阿兹特克，在墨西哥中部高原发展起来，考古学家几十年前就知道运河系统的存在。然而，运河的年代很难确定，因此很难将灌溉和社会发展的变化联系起来。尼利博士和他的同事们发现了一个非凡的“灌溉”运河系统，它有可能克服这一困难。它们保存得非常好，这是由于通过它们的通道的沃茨中含有的矿物质（主要由碳酸钙组成的碳酸钙）的沉积。因此，运河系统被保存在石头中，有些地方超过2.0米厚。这些系统，在估计2700年的时间内建造，显然是随着时间的推移而更新和延长。古建筑保存了其建造顺序的记录，并提供了一个敏感的措施，以衡量制造和使用它们的人对农业生产的需求。Neely博士及其同事将绘制运河图，并选择性地提取运河横截面中分层存在的古生物样本。将进行铀系测年和稳定同位素分析，并将有机物去除，以进行放射性碳测年。相关的花粉，植硅体和硅藻将恢复古环境重建。相关的档案研究将寻找有关晚期前西班牙和早期殖民地土地和水的使用和保有权的文件。在此基础上，将有可能构建运河建设、随后的扩建和改进以及系统最终消亡的年表。还将获得植被生态学以及对运河附近田地中栽培和非栽培植物的见解。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. James Neely and collaborators will reconstruct the prehistoric canal system located in the Tehuacan Valley, central Mexico. Archaeologists who wish to understand the processes which led to complex societies have focused on water management systems because of the significant role they played. In many regions of the world where early civilizations emerged, rainfall was not sufficient to permit large scale dependable agriculture and to meet subsistence needs extensive canal systems were constructed. Such large, labor intensive projects, require many people to work together in a coordinated fashion. Major systems require extensive planning, and decisions about allocation of land and water necessitate some form of central control. Therefore archaeologists believe that in many places canal irrigation is closely linked to the development of large scale societies and centralized systems of government and economics. A series of early states and empires, including the Aztec, developed in central highland Mexico and archaeologists have known for decades that canal systems were present. However canals are extremely difficult to date and therefore it is hard to correlate changes in irrigation and social development.Dr. Neely and his colleagues have identified an extraordinary system of "fossilized" canals with the potential to obviate this difficulty. They have been incredibly well preserved due to the deposition of minerals (travertines comprised primarily of calcium carbonate) that were contained in the waters that passed through their channels. Thus the canal systems are preserved in stone that is in some places over 2.0 meters thick. These systems, constructed over an estimated 2700 year period were apparently renovated and extended through time. The travertine preserves a record of its construction sequence and provides a sensitive measure of the demand for agricultural production of the people who made and used them. Dr. Neely and colleagues will map the canals and selectively extract samples of travertine present as stratified layers in the canal cross-sections. Uranium-series dating and stable isotope analyses will be conducted and organics removed for radiocarbon dating. Associated pollen, phytoliths and diatoms will be recovered for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Related archival studies will search out documents pertaining to late Prehispanic and early Colonial land and water use and tenure. On this basis it will be possible to construct a chronology of canal construction, subsequent expansions and improvements and the eventual demise of the systems. Vegetational ecology and insights into the cultivated and non-cultivated plants from fields adjacent to the canals will also be obtained.