Dissertation: The Role of Cerros de Trincheras in Prehistoric Agricultural Strategies of Northern Mexico and the Southern Southwest

在Wirt Wills博士和Robert Hard博士的指导下，Gerry Raymond先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。多年来，考古学家已经认识到在史前晚期的西南部存在着“Cerros de trinchera”(梯田山坡)。研究表明，梯田具有多种功能，人们既居住在梯田上，又将梯田用作农田。然而，最近在墨西哥奇瓦瓦州发现了类似的特征，明显早于北部对应的州，可以追溯到3000多年前的古代时期。在梯田土壤中发现的玉米和其他家养植物的碎片表明，居民在一个被认为是狩猎和采集的唯一生存来源的时间和地点从事农业。雷蒙德将在奇瓦瓦的一个新发现的三角兽群中进行考古研究，以确定它们是如何运作的。由于对这一群体知之甚少，他将进行试验性挖掘，以找回文化材料以及木炭、动物和植物遗骸。这将允许通过放射性碳测年确定年龄，并提供关于生存资源范围的信息。雷蒙德还希望了解，为什么建造这样的梯田要花费相对大量的劳动力，为什么居民不依赖劳动密集度较低的平地耕作。根据后来美国同行的分析，他假设各个梯田根据径流集水区的微小差异创造了具有独特水分特征的独立微环境。他认为，一些梯田比其他梯田灌溉得更好，在多变的半干旱降雨条件下，基于不可预测的降雨量，梯田之间的生产率每年都会有所不同。因此，梯田将起到最小化风险的作用。他将使用地理信息系统显示和关联数据，绘制梯田地图，测量梯田的坡度、集水区和地质背景，并确定观察到的变化是否符合他的预测。他还将把单独的梯田山坡置于更大的地理环境中，以了解它们如何在更广泛的生态/生存环境中发挥作用。这项研究是在最优觅食理论的理论框架内进行的。这项工作之所以重要，有几个原因。古老的Cerros de trinchera的存在完全出人意料，极大地改变了考古学家对农业发展的理解，以及在美国西南部和墨西哥的大片地区从狩猎和采集转向农业的转变。雷蒙德的工作将在一个非常小和不充分的样本中增加一组新的病例。这项研究将为这些功能如何发挥作用提供新的见解，并提供许多科学家感兴趣的数据。它还将帮助培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Drs. Wirt Wills and Robert Hard, Mr. Gerry Raymond will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. For many years archaeologists have recognized the presence of "cerros de trincheras" (terraced hillsides) in the late prehistoric Southwest. Research indicates that they served multiple functions and that people both lived on them and used the terraces as agricultural fields. Recently however similar features have been discovered in the state of Chihuahua Mexico which are significantly earlier than their northern counterparts and which date to the Archaic period, over 3,000 years ago. The discovery of fragments of maize and other domestic plants in the terrace soil demonstrates that the inhabitants were practicing agriculture at a time and place where hunting and gathering had been believed to be the sole source of subsistence. Mr. Raymond will conduct archaeological research at a newly recognized group of cerros de trincheras in Chihuahua to determine how they functioned. Because little is known about this group, he will conduct test excavations to recover cultural material as well as charcoal, faunal and botanical remains. These will permit age determination by radiocarbon dating and also provide information on the range of subsistence resources. Mr. Raymond also wishes to understand why relatively large amounts of labor were expended to build such terraces and why residents did not rely on less labor intensive flat ground farming. Based on analyses from later U.S. counterparts, he postulates that individual terraces create separate microenvironments with unique moisture characteristics based on slight differences in runoff catchment. Some terraces, he believes were better watered than others and in variable semi-arid rainfall conditions, productivity among terraces would vary from year to year based on unpredictable rainfall level. Thus terracing would serve a risk minimizing function. Using a geographic information system to display and correlate data, he will map terraces, measure their slope, catchment area and geological context and determine whether observed variation meets his prediction. He will also set the individual terraced hillsides into a larger geographic context to learn how they functioned in a broader ecological/subsistence context. The research is situated within a theoretical framework of optimum foraging theory.This work is important for several reasons. The existence of Archaic cerros de trincheras was completely unexpected and significantly changes archaeologists understanding of the development of agriculture and the shift from hunting and gathering to farming over a wide region in the U.S. Southwest and Mexico. Mr. Raymond's work will add a new set of cases to a very small and inadequate sample. The research will provide new insight into how these features functioned and provide data of interest to many scientists. It will also assist in training a promising young scientist.