Collaborative: Continuity and Change in Community Organization in the Casas Grandes Region, in Chihuahua, Mexico

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下。Michael Whalen和Paul Minnis将在Casas Grandes地区进行三个季节的考古实地工作。虽然卡萨斯等级位于墨西哥奇瓦瓦州的西北部，但它是普韦布洛风格的文化之一，最出名的是邻近的美国西南部。在其鼎盛时期（约公元1200-1450年），卡萨斯格兰德斯被认为是普韦布洛人世界中最大、最复杂的史前社区。它进一步被认为是该地区主要互动系统之一的中心，也是中美洲文化和美国西南部文化之间的纽带。尽管它被公认为史前晚期北美为数不多的土著复杂社会之一，但对Casas Grandes政体的研究甚少，以至于其规模、结构、集中化程度和运作模式的大多数方面仍然模糊不清。自1989年以来，惠伦博士和明尼斯博士在奇瓦瓦州的工作旨在纠正这种情况，首先进行了大规模的定居模式调查，最近又在选定的地点进行了挖掘计划。与过去25年来流行的原始和极具影响力的解释相反，最近的工作表明，大之家的政体并不像人们所争论的那样高度集中，而是存在于社会政治复杂性的中间水平。它无法对近邻施加统一的控制。更有可能的是，在政治不稳定的背景下，它代表着一种不那么全面、不那么集中的不规则控制局面。这个想法是尽可能从调查和有限的挖掘数据中发展起来的。它的进一步解释需要关于Casas Grandes区域中心如何以及在多大程度上影响其邻国的数据。这个复杂的问题将通过对边远定居点的挖掘来解决。显而易见，在卡萨斯格兰德斯，一套涉及经济、声望商品和仪式的领导力方案。Whalen博士和Minnis博士将追踪这些特征在周围地区传播的程度。

With National Science Foundation support Drs. Michael Whalen and Paul Minnis will conduct three seasons of archaeological fieldwork in the Casas Grandes region. Although located in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, Casas Grades is one of the pueblo-style cultures that are best known from the adjacent southwestern U.S. At its apogee (ca. A.D. 1200-1450) Casas Grandes has been characterized as the largest and most complex prehistoric community in the puebloan world. It is further recognized both as the center of one of the major interaction systems of the region and as a link between the cultures of Mesoamerica and those of the U.S. Southwest. Despite its acknowledged status as one of late prehistoric North America's few indigenous complex societies, the Casas Grandes polity has been so little studied that most aspects of its size, structure, level of centralization, and mode of operation remain obscure. Dr. Whalen's and Minnis' work in Chihuahua since 1989 has been designed to remedy this situation, first with a large settlement pattern survey and more recently with a program of excavation at selected sites. In contrast to the original and highly influential interpretation which has prevailed for the last 25 years, recent work agues that the Casas Grandes polity was not, as had been argued, highly centralized, but rather existed at an intermediate level of sociopolitical complexity. It was not able to exert uniform control over its near neighbors. More likely it represents a less comprehensive, less centralized situation of irregular control in a politically unstable context. This idea has been developed as far as possible from the survey and limited excavation data available. Its further explication requires data on how and to what extent the regional center of Casas Grandes impacted its neighbors. This complex question will be approached through excavation at outlying settlements. Apparent at Casas Grandes is a leadership package that involved economics, prestige goods, and ritual. Drs Whalen and Minnis will trace the extent to which these attributes spread over the surrounding areas.