Collaborative Research: Foraging to Farming on the Pacific Coast of Southern Mexico

在国家科学基金会的支持下，道格拉斯·肯尼特博士和芭芭拉·沃海斯博士将在墨西哥南部太平洋海岸及其附近的遗址进行为期一季的考古发掘。以前在这一领域的研究表明，古生物遗址的存在跨越了距今约7,500年至2,700年前的早期形成时期。沿海的贝类幼虫表明，古代的猎人和采集者广泛使用鱼类和贝类，植物学证据表明，这些群体可能获得了国内玉米。他们还从不同的资源区收集野生动植物资源，可能是从位于森林覆盖的沿海平原的中央大本营寻找食物。到大约2700年前的中期形成时期开始，这些聚落被改造成点缀在风景中的定居农业村庄。居民主要依靠玉米农业。这项研究的目的是深入了解人类生存和定居模式中这一鲜为人知的关键转变，因为这种从依赖野生资源到种植资源的基本变化在世界许多地区独立发生，并为复杂社会的发展奠定了基础。初步证据表明，早期古代人可以获得玉米，但不清楚这种驯化是如何被纳入他们的饮食中的，以及这种驯化如何改变了生存和定居策略。在这一关键的转变时间跨度上，该领域以前的研究表明，存在丰富的遗址，但未能界定土地利用的变化、人类互动的变化以及人类行为的区域差异。肯尼特博士和沃希斯博士认为，在更大的土地利用模式的背景下理解这些变化可能是最好的。虽然在太平洋沿岸发现了许多遗址，但对邻近的内陆山区的了解要少得多。调查表明，这里有一系列的洞穴和岩石避难所，很可能是古人居住的地方。由于它们提供的避雨场所，这些遗址经常为植物遗骸提供极好的保护，肯内特博士和沃希斯博士希望进行试验性挖掘，以恢复考古和植物学材料。他们还将挖掘后来形成沿海的农业遗址，以进一步了解生存实践。为了重建可能的季节性运动，研究人员将对贝壳进行同位素分析，因为氧同位素比率的变化可以洞察收获贝壳的季节。他们还将专注于陶瓷的微量元素研究，试图将成品与粘土来源联系起来，从而重建商品的流动以及随着时间的推移人们之间相应的经济联系。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将提供一个鲜为人知的考古地区的数据，这将引起许多考古学家的兴趣。这项工作还将增加对中美洲从觅食到耕种的转变的了解，并提供对导致一个重要的新大陆文明崛起的过程的洞察。

With National Science Foundation support Drs. Douglas Kennett and Barbara Voorhies will conduct one season of archaeological excavation at sites located on and near the Pacific coast in southern Mexico. Previous work in this area has indicated the presence of sites which span the Archaic through Early Formative periods from ca. 7,500 to 2,700 years before the present. Shell middens located along the coast indicate that Archaic period hunters and gatherers made extensive use of fish and shell fish, and botanical evidence suggests that these groups may have had access to domestic maize. They also collected wild plant and animal resources from a variety of resource zones and probably foraged out from central base camps located on the forested coastal plain. By the beginning of the Middle Formative Period, ca 2,700 years ago these settlements were transformed into sedentary agricultural villages which dotted the landscape. Inhabitants depended primarily on maize agriculture. The goal of this research is to gain insight into this poorly understood and crucial transformation in human subsistence and settlement patterns, because this basic change, from reliance on wild to cultivated resources occurred independently in many parts of the world and set the stage for the development of complex societies. Tentative evidence suggests that early Archaic peoples had access to maize but it is unclear how this domesticate was incorporated into their diets and how this altered subsistence and settlement strategies. Previous research in the area on this crucial transformational time span has indicated the presence of abundant sites but has failed to define shifts in land use, changes in human interactions and regional variations in human behavior. Drs. Kennett and Voorhies believe that these changes may best be understood in the context of larger land use patterns. While many sites have been discovered along the Pacific coast much less is known about adjacent inland mountainous regions. Survey has indicated that a series of caves and rock shelters are present and quite likely were inhabited by Archaic peoples. Because of the shelter they offer from rain, such sites often provide excellent protection for plant remains and Dr. Kennett and Voorhies wish to conduct test excavations to recover archaeological and botanical materials. They will also excavate later coastal Formative agricultural sites to gain additional insight into subsistence practices. To reconstruct possible seasonal movements the investigators will carry out isotopic analysis of shells because variation in the ratio of oxygen isotopes provides insight into the season in which they were harvested. They will focus also on trace element studies of ceramics in an attempt to link finished products to clay sources and thus reconstruct the movements of goods and the corresponding economic links between groups of people over time. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data on a poorly known archaeological region and this will be of interest to many archaeologists. The work will also increase understanding of the transition from foraging to farming in Mesoamerica and offer insight into the processes which led to the rise of an important New World civilization.