Religious Interaction Along La Frontera

拉弗龙特拉沿线的宗教互动

• 批准号: 0001432
• 负责人: William Walker
• 金额: $ 11.65万
• 依托单位: New Mexico State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-06-15 至 2005-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0001432&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Religious; Interaction; Along; La; Frontera

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.

在国家科学喷泉的支持下，威廉步行者博士和詹姆斯斯基博将在位于新墨西哥州南部的乔伊斯井遗址进行为期三年的考古调查。 该遗址是一个更大的奇瓦瓦州互动圈的一部分，该互动圈以卡萨斯格兰德的主要城镇为中心，在西班牙人到达新大陆之前的几个世纪里，覆盖了美国西南部的大部分地区和北方墨西哥的邻近地区。这一广大地区的共同点表明，社会融合程度较高，但将这一广大地区分散的社区联系在一起的“粘合剂”的性质尚不清楚。考古学家最初的理论是，贸易是负责任的，遗址被整合到一个更大的系统中，向南延伸到墨西哥中部。然而，步行者和斯基博假设，该地区是由自治团体组成的宗教互动领域的一部分，这些自治团体的共同仪式活动导致了某些物质文化类别的同质聚集。调查人员认为，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，如共享的多彩风格陶瓷，建筑和岩石艺术，这表明了共同信仰和仪式实践的储备。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大卡萨斯的中心地点。虽然卡萨斯格兰德是相对知名的，在复杂的大多数网站仍然没有测试或未报告。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，乔伊斯井是互动圈西北边缘的几个大儿子之一。在这个遗址和其他地方，社区和家庭仪式权力的证据可能存在于他们的遗弃方法中。乔伊斯井像该地区的许多其他网站，包括卡萨斯格兰德，展品的火热破坏的证据，一直被归因于史前暴力。然而，西南部正在进行的考古研究表明，这种燃烧可能是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，并记录了随着时间的推移而增加的复杂性，考古学家将重点放在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的仪式作为力量强大到足以让这样一个大的人口稀少的地区的凝聚力，这项研究是重要的，因为它将评估什么样的作用，这样一个因素可能发挥。