Tres Zapotes Archaeological Project 2003

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Christopher A.Pool博士和他的同事将在墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯的Tres Zapotes考古遗址进行为期两年的挖掘和实验室分析项目。拥有跨越公元前1000年至公元1000年的两千年的考古记录的特雷斯·萨波特斯是理解墨西哥南部墨西哥湾沿岸低地古代奥尔梅克根基形成古典时期文明的关键地点。奥尔梅克酋长领地在公元前1500年至公元前400年蓬勃发展，创造了中美洲第一个伟大的雕塑传统，并建立了在经典玛雅等后来的文明中发现的社会、政治和宗教模式。这就是奥尔梅克文化给人留下的深刻印象及其影响的程度，以至于一些学者将其视为中美洲的“母亲文化”。长期以来，在奥尔梅克腹地东部的主要遗址进行的研究一直强调这种早熟文化在公元前400年左右崩溃。然而，普尔博士之前在特雷斯·扎波特斯所做的研究描绘了一幅非常不同的图景。这个地区的奥尔梅克首府非但没有衰落，反而在公元前400年至公元300年间发展到2平方英里(500公顷)，成为后来海湾南部低地上最大的埃皮-奥尔梅克文化中心。Epi-Olmec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，发明了同样复杂的长历，后来被经典玛雅人采用，以及王权政治制度的正规化。普尔博士和他的同事们将调查促成这些文化发展的政治和经济过程。具体地说，该项目测试了Tres Zapotes政治经济的“邦联”模式，在这种模式下，相互竞争的政治派别的领导人联合起来统治Tres Zapotes政体，强调互惠义务和公共仪式的公司战略，同时垄断各自派别的意识形态和经济权力来源。在正式的民间仪式建筑群和手工艺品生产区对Olmec和Epi-Olmec背景的挖掘将为测试这一模型提供数据。在正式建筑群中的挖掘旨在恢复关于它们同时代的程度、其功能随时间的变化、对有价值的资源的差异化获取以及文物和公共纪念碑的象征性内容的信息。对工艺品生产区的挖掘，包括附属于正式建筑群和非精英家庭的挖掘，将评估制造组织和产品的差异。这项研究很重要，因为它将为了解中美洲古代历史上一个关键但鲜为人知的时期提供新的线索，并将有助于关于政治经济学在复杂社会演变和国家形成中的作用的理论。其更广泛的影响包括对墨西哥和北美学生进行实地和分析技术培训，促进与墨西哥专业人员的国际合作，并将为未来的研究加强当地的基础设施。

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.