Sedentism and Social Competition: Archaic and Formative Archaeology in Apizaco, Tlaxcala

久坐和社会竞争：特拉斯卡拉阿皮萨科的古代和形成考古学

• 批准号: 0003961
• 负责人: Richard Lesure
• 金额: $ 3.13万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-01-01 至 2002-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0003961&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Sedentism; Social; Competition; Archaic; Formative

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Richard Lesure will conduct one field season of archaeological and geomorphological survey in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala which is located ca. 80 km. East of Mexico City. From an archaeological perspective, the region is famous because it acquired a sufficient degree of power and centralized social organization to resist Aztec imperialism and eventually allied itself with the Spanish conquistadors in the Aztec conquest. Thus the area bears testimony to the development of complex highly organized society. Dr. Lesure wishes to understand the early phases of this development and in the process gain insight into the factors which lead to a sedentary existence. Preliminary data suggest that a large prehistoric lake once existed in this region and because lakes can provide significant subsistence resources, it is necessary as a first step to reconstruct the past environment. Dr. Lesure and his colleagues will excavate or extract cores from relevant sediments for this purpose. The team will then survey for archaeological sites and select several for test excavation. The data thus collected should permit them to establish a solid cultural chronology for the region and also, through analysis of faunal and floral remains provide insight into subsistence activities.Humans spent much of prehistory as nomadic hunter-gatherers, but during the last 10,000 years people across the globe have shifted to increasingly sedentary lives. Because this occurred independently in many different areas, scientists assume that it reflects a basic underlying process rather than historical happenstance and they wish to understand the underlying principles involved. For many years it was believed that sedentism was simply a consequence of the adoption of agriculture and sedentary lifeways and the emergence of food production seem often to have been closely related. However the relationship is not a simple one because preagricultural sedentism has been documented both archaeologically and historically. Two models have been proposed to explain the origins of sedentism and they invoke very different causal mechanisms. One is based on subsistence productivity and focuses on changing human-environmental relationships. The other envisions a process of social competition and argues that the process is at least fueled by competition for status among individuals and groups. Dr. Lesure believes that the two models would have clearly different signatures in the Tlaxcala region which thus offers an excellent research venue for such a study.This project is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will also shed new light on the processes which led to the rise of complex society.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Richard Lesure博士将在墨西哥的特拉斯卡拉州进行一个考古和地貌调查的实地季节。八十公里。在墨西哥城以东。从考古学的角度来看，该地区是著名的，因为它获得了足够程度的权力和中央集权的社会组织，以抵抗阿兹特克帝国主义，并最终与西班牙征服者结盟，在阿兹特克征服。因此，该地区见证了复杂的高度组织化社会的发展。Lesure博士希望了解这种发展的早期阶段，并在此过程中深入了解导致久坐不动的因素。初步数据表明，该地区曾经存在一个大型史前湖泊，由于湖泊可以提供重要的生存资源，因此有必要首先重建过去的环境。Lesure博士和他的同事将为此目的从相关沉积物中挖掘或提取岩心。然后，该小组将调查考古遗址，并选择几个进行测试挖掘。这样收集的数据将使他们能够为该地区建立一个可靠的文化年表，并通过对动物和植物遗骸的分析，提供对生存活动的深入了解。人类在史前的大部分时间里都是游牧狩猎采集者，但在过去的10，000年里，地球仪上的人们已经转向越来越多的定居生活。由于这在许多不同的领域独立发生，科学家认为它反映了一个基本的潜在过程，而不是历史上的偶然事件，他们希望了解所涉及的基本原则。多年来，人们认为久坐症只是农业和久坐生活方式的结果，而粮食生产的出现似乎往往密切相关。然而，这种关系并不简单，因为在考古学和历史学上都有关于农业前sedentism的记载。有两种模型被提出来解释sedentism的起源，他们调用非常不同的因果机制。一个是以维持生计的生产力为基础，重点是改变人类与环境的关系。另一种则设想了一个社会竞争的过程，并认为这一过程至少是由个人和群体之间对地位的竞争所推动的。Lesure博士认为，这两种模式在特拉斯卡拉地区会有明显不同的特征，因此为这样的研究提供了一个很好的研究场所。它将为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的数据。它还将揭示导致复杂社会兴起的过程。