Religious Interaction Along La Frontera

在国家科学喷泉的支持下。威廉·沃克和詹姆斯·斯基博将在新墨西哥州南部的乔伊斯井进行为期三年的考古调查。该遗址是一个更大的吉娃娃互动圈的一部分，该互动圈以卡萨斯格兰德斯的主要城镇为中心，在西班牙人到达新大陆之前的几个世纪里，它覆盖了美国西南部和墨西哥北部邻近地区的大部分地区。在这一大片地区共享的相似之处表明社会融合程度相对较高，但目前尚不清楚将这一广阔地区广泛分离的社区联系在一起的“粘合剂”的性质。考古学家最初的理论是，贸易是罪魁祸首，这些遗址被整合成一个更大的系统，向南延伸到墨西哥中部。然而，Walker和Skibo假设该地区形成了由自治群体组成的宗教互动领域的一部分，这些群体的共同仪式活动导致了某些物质文化类别的同质组合。研究人员认为，这个区域系统中的社区并没有统一成一个单一的经济或政治实体，而是拥有类似的文物，例如共享的多色风格陶瓷、建筑和岩石艺术，这表明他们拥有共同的信仰和仪式实践。然而，该地区宗教互动的组织仍然模糊不清，因为直到最近，大多数研究都集中在Casas Grandes的中心地点。虽然卡萨斯格兰德斯相对知名，但该建筑群的大多数地点仍未经过测试或未报道。在国家科学基金会的支持下，研究人员将在乔伊斯井进行研究，乔伊斯井是相互作用领域西北边缘的几个大型基地之一。这个地方和其他地方的社区和家庭仪式力量的证据可能存在于他们抛弃的方式中。就像该地区的许多其他遗址一样，包括卡萨斯·格兰德斯，展示了大火破坏的证据，这些证据一直被认为是史前暴力造成的。然而，正在进行的西南考古研究表明，这种燃烧可能是由仪式活动而不是战争造成的。调查人员将进行仔细的地层挖掘，试图确定破坏的原因。研究人员希望了解导致复杂社会兴起的因素，因为它们很容易接近，而且随着时间的推移，它们的复杂性也在增加，考古学家们把重点放在了美国西南部和墨西哥的邻近地区。然而，很少有人认真考虑宗教和相关仪式作为一种强大的力量，足以让如此大的人烟稀少的地区凝聚在一起，这项研究很重要，因为它将评估这种因素可能发挥的作用。

With National Science Fountain support Drs. William Walker and James Skibo will conduct three years of archeological investigation at the site of Joyce Well, located in southern New Mexico. The site is part of a larger Chihuahua interaction sphere which was centered on the major town of Casas Grandes and which, in the several centuries preceding the arrival of Spanish in the New World, covered much of the US Southwest and adjacent regions in northern Mexico. Shared similarities across this large region indicate a relatively high degree of social integration but it is unclear the nature of the "glue" which bound together widely separated communities over this extensive area. Archaeologists originally theorized that trade was responsible and that sites were integrated into a larger system which extended South into central Mexico. Walker and Skibo postulate however that the region forms part of a religious interaction sphere comprised of autonomous groups whose common ritual activities resulted in homogenous assemblages of certain classes of material culture. Rather than uniting into a single economic or political entity, the investigators believe communities in this regional system possessed similar artifacts such as shared polychrome style ceramics, architecture and rock art which is indicative of a reservoir of shared beliefs and ritual practices. The organization of religious interaction in the region however remains murky because until recently the majority of research has focused on the central site of Casas Grandes. Although Casas Grandes is relatively well known, the majority of sites in the complex remain untested or unreported. With NSF support the investigators will conduct research at Joyce Well one of several large son the northwestern periphery of the interaction sphere. Evidence of community and household ritual power at this site and others likely resides in their method of abandonment. Joyce Well like many other sites in the region including Casas Grandes, exhibits evidence of fiery destruction that has consistently been attributed to prehistoric violence. Ongoing southwestern archaeological research however suggests that this burning may have resulted from ritual activities rather than war. The investigators will conduct careful stratigraphic excavation in an attempt to determine the cause of destruction.Researchers wish to understand the factors which led to the rise of complex societies and because they are so readily accessible and document increasing complexity over time, archaeologists have focussed on the US Southwest and adjacent areas in Mexico. Very few however have seriously considered religion and associated ritual as forces strong enough to allow cohesion over such a large sparsely inhabited region and this research is important because it will evaluate what role such a factor may have played.