Tres Zapotes Archaeological Project 2003

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，克里斯托弗·A.普尔和他的同事将在墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯州的特雷斯萨波特斯考古遗址进行为期两年的挖掘和实验室分析项目。 Tres Zapotes拥有跨越公元前1000年至公元1000年两千年的考古记录，是了解墨西哥南部墨西哥湾沿岸低地古老奥尔梅克文明出现的关键地点。 奥尔梅克的酋长从公元前1500年到公元前400年繁荣起来，创造了中美洲第一个伟大的雕塑传统，并建立了社会，政治和宗教模式，这些模式在古典玛雅文明中找到。 这是奥尔梅克文化的印象深刻，其影响范围，一些学者认为它是中美洲的“母亲文化”。 对奥尔梅克中心地带东部主要遗址的研究长期以来一直强调这种早熟文化在公元前400年左右的崩溃。然而，普尔博士之前在特雷斯·萨波特斯的研究描绘了一幅截然不同的画面。 这个奥尔梅克地区的首府非但没有衰落，反而在公元前400年至公元300年间扩大到2平方英里（500公顷），成为海湾南部低地最大的埃皮-奥尔梅克文化中心。 埃皮-奥尔梅克文化的重大成就包括发展了美洲最早和最复杂的书写系统之一，发明了后来被古典玛雅人采用的同样复杂的长历法，以及王权政治制度的正式化。 普尔博士和他的同事们将调查促进这些文化发展的政治和经济进程。 具体而言，该项目测试了特雷斯萨波特斯政治经济的“邦联”模式，在该模式中，相互竞争的政治派别的领导人联合起来，通过强调互惠义务和社区仪式的共同战略来统治特雷斯萨波特斯政体，同时垄断各自派别内的意识形态和经济权力来源。 在正式的公民礼仪复杂和工艺生产领域的奥尔梅克和Epi-Olmec环境的验证将提供数据来测试这个模型。 在正式的复合体中，重建的目的是恢复有关它们同时代的程度、它们功能随时间的变化、对有价值资源的不同访问以及人工制品和公共纪念碑的象征性内容的信息。在手工艺生产领域，包括那些附属于正式综合体和非精英家庭的手工艺生产领域，将评估组织和制造产品的变化。 这项研究是重要的，因为它将揭示一个关键的，但了解甚少的古代中美洲历史时期的新的光，它将有助于理论上的政治经济在复杂社会的演变和国家的形成的作用。 其更广泛的影响包括培训墨西哥和北美学生的实地和分析技术，促进与墨西哥专业人员的国际合作，并将加强当地的基础设施，为未来的研究。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Christopher A. Pool and his colleagues will conduct a two-year project of excavation and laboratory analysis at the archaeological site of Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, Mexico. With an archaeological record that spans the two millennia between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 1000, Tres Zapotes is the key site for understanding the emergence of Classic period civilization from ancient Olmec roots in Mexico's southern Gulf Coast lowlands. Olmec chiefdoms flourished from 1500 to 400 B.C., creating Mesoamerica's first great sculptural tradition and establishing social, political, and religious patterns found among such later civilizations as the Classic Maya. Such was the impressiveness of Olmec culture and the extent of its influence that some scholars regard it as Mesoamerica's "Mother Culture". Research at major sites in the eastern part of the Olmec heartland has long emphasized the collapse of this precocious culture around 400 B.C. Dr. Pool's previous research at Tres Zapotes paints a very different picture, however. Far from suffering a decline, this regional Olmec capital grew to cover 2 square miles (500 ha) between 400 B.C. and A.D. 300, becoming the largest center of the succeeding Epi-Olmec culture in the southern Gulf lowlands. Among the significant accomplishments of Epi-Olmec culture were the development of one of the earliest and most sophisticated writing systems in the Americas, the invention of the equally sophisticated Long Count calendar later employed by the Classic Maya, and the formalization of the political institution of kingship. Dr. Pool and his colleagues will investigate the political and economic processes that fostered these cultural developments. Specifically, the project tests a "confederation" model of Tres Zapotes political economy in which leaders of competing political factions united to rule the Tres Zapotes polity by emphasizing a corporate strategy of reciprocal obligations and communal ritual while monopolizing the ideological and economic sources of power within their respective factions. Excavations of Olmec and Epi-Olmec contexts in formal civic-ceremonial complexes and craft production areas will provide the data to test this model. Excavations in the formal complexes are designed to recover information on the degree to which they were contemporaneous, variation in their functions through time, differential access to valued resources, and the symbolic content of artifacts and public monuments. Excavations in craft production areas, including those attached to formal complexes and non-elite households, will assess variation in the organization and products of manufacture. This research is important because it will shed new light on a crucial but poorly understood period of ancient Mesoamerican history, and it will contribute to theory on the role of political economies in the evolution of complex society and the formation of states. Its broader impacts include the training of Mexican and North American students in field and analytical techniques, the fostering of international collaboration with Mexican professionals, and it will enhance the local infrastructure for future research.