Remote Sensing, Ancient Footpaths, and Regional Integration in the Arenal Area, Costa Rica

哥斯达黎加阿雷纳尔地区的遥感、古代人行道和区域一体化

• 批准号: 0107943
• 负责人: Payson Sheets
• 金额: $ 10.35万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-01-01 至 2004-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0107943&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Remote; Sensing; Ancient; Footpaths; Regional

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Payson Sheets and his colleagues will conduct two field seasons of archaeological research in the Arenal area of northwestern Costa Rica. His project extensively utilizes remote sensing imagery, image processing, and data analysis is assisted by Dr. Tom Sever and his colleagues at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Sheets and Sever have discovered that they can detect something that was previously not believed to be possible: small footpaths created by people walking from their ancient villages to a cemetery on the continental divide, and from the cemetery to a spring and to sources of stone used for tomb construction. Satellite technology has recently progressed to a level that it should provide imagery that can detect the continuation of these footpaths to a village or villages that was using the cemetery. Excavations of linear anomalies will provide data to verify or negate anomalies as footpaths. Previous research by Dr. Sheets has found evidence of extensive post-interment ritual and feasting in the cemetery, that date to about 1200 years ago. If the rituals and feasting were conducted by only one village, then they functioned to reinforce community or lineage/household solidarity. However, if more than one village was conducting feasting, then the rituals could have functioned as a regional integrative mechanism. If the latter is true, with communities on both sides of the continental divide participating, then this could explain the extraordinary cultural resilience of eastern villages to massive explosive eruptions of Arenal volcano. Previous research by Sheets and colleagues has documented ten great explosive eruptions of Arenal volcano over the past 4000 years, and discovered a cultural resilience during reoccupation greater than any other ancient Latin American culture studied to date. The research team includes natural scientists and social scientists from the US and Costa Rica. Publications will first appear in Spanish in Vinculos, the anthropological journal from the Costa Rican Museo Nacional, prior to publications appearing in English in US journals. A bilingual website will present all relevant imagery, trenching profiles and photography, artifacts, and literature for scholars and interested others.

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Payson Sheets博士和他的同事们将在哥斯达黎加西北部的Arenal地区进行两次实地考古研究。他的项目广泛利用遥感图像、图像处理和数据分析，由美国宇航局位于亨茨维尔的马歇尔太空飞行中心的Tom Sever博士和他的同事协助。Sheets和Sever发现他们可以探测到一些以前认为不可能的东西：人们从他们古老的村庄走到大陆分水岭上的一个墓地，从墓地到一个泉水和用于建造坟墓的石头来源，创造了一些小路。卫星技术最近已经发展到可以提供图像的水平，可以探测到这些小径延伸到使用墓地的一个或多个村庄。线性异常的挖掘将提供数据来验证或否定异常作为足迹。希茨博士之前的研究发现，在墓地里有大量的葬后仪式和宴会的证据，可以追溯到大约1200年前。如果仪式和宴会只由一个村庄举行，那么它们的作用是加强社区或血统/家庭的团结。然而，如果不止一个村庄在举办宴会，那么这些仪式可能是一种区域整合机制。如果后者是真的，大陆分水岭两侧的社区都参与其中，那么这就可以解释东部村庄对阿雷纳尔火山大规模爆发的非凡文化弹性。Sheets及其同事之前的研究记录了过去4000年阿雷纳尔火山的10次大爆发，并发现在重新占领期间的文化弹性比迄今为止研究的任何其他古代拉丁美洲文化都要大。该研究团队包括来自美国和哥斯达黎加的自然科学家和社会科学家。出版物将首先以西班牙语发表在哥斯达黎加国家博物馆的人类学期刊《Vinculos》上，然后以英语发表在美国期刊上。一个双语网站将为学者和其他感兴趣的人提供所有相关的图像、海沟简介和照片、文物和文献。