Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: El Marquesillo Archaeological Survey

在Robert H.Tykot博士的监督下，Travis Doering将收集和分析墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯El Marquesillo海湾Olmec遗址形成时期(公元前1250年至公元200年)的数据。通过考古调查、文物收集、测绘和地球物理勘探相结合，杜林将调查遗址的结构和组成。对El Marquesillo的调查提供了一个机会，可以检查一个在墨西哥湾沿岸形成时期的社会和经济景观中扮演的角色不确定的地点。这项研究产生的数据将用于评估奥尔梅克定居点等级和政治经济学的替代模型。记录和研究遗址的结构和组成将产生关于其政治组织的信息，收集和分析文物组合将产生关于当地经济模式和过程的数据。综合起来，这些数据将提供有关被称为海湾奥尔梅克心脏地带的核心和外围遗址之间社会政治互动的新信息。对遗址内陶瓷和雕塑证据的初步调查表明，该遗址的居民与其他奥尔梅克中心有联系。然而，这种互动的性质和时机仍然未知，这些关系的政治和经济后果也是如此。这些是了解区域内联系和海湾奥尔梅克文明的长期轨迹，以及它对中美洲社会政治复杂性的出现和发展的影响的重要变量。这项研究将包括一系列综合的调查、收集、勘探和测绘技术，这些技术将检测和记录景观特征、场地组成和地下沉积。该地点将使用全站仪、磁力仪和电磁传导仪绘制地图。将使用人为土壤调查来检查地下沉积物的存在和性质，更大的目标是了解早期的活动地点，以便与后来的场地组织进行比较。动态河床切割的选定路段暴露了场地的大部分，将用来将这些观测集合连接在一起，形成定居点组织的历时图景。对表面收集的陶瓷和石器组合进行分析，将能够评估遗址内的分布模式，并能够就遗址居民参与区域内交换网络的程度做出推断。将这些数据与摄影测量技术相结合，将产生一系列由地理信息系统生成的现场图像，这些图像将提供该地点职业历史的高分辨率图片。通过使用非侵入性技术的多阶段研究设计，该研究将评估对El Marquesillo在墨西哥湾沿岸奥尔梅克社会政治等级制度中所扮演的政治和经济角色的对比解释。由此产生的数据将有助于目前存在的关于南墨西哥湾沿岸形成时期外围地点的有限证据，并形成未来调查的基础。这项工作的更广泛影响将是加强合作调查员的科学和考古能力，并改善墨西哥和美国考古学家之间的启发式和实际关系。

Under the supervision of Dr. Robert H. Tykot, Travis Doering will collect and analyze data from the Formative period (c. 1250 B.C. to A.D. 200) Gulf Olmec site of El Marquesillo, Veracruz, Mexico. Through a combination of archaeological survey, artifact collection, mapping, and geophysical prospection, Doering will investigate the structure and composition of the site. The investigation of El Marquesillo presents an opportunity to examine a site whose role within the social and economic landscape of the Formative period Gulf Coast is uncertain. Data generated by this research will be used to evaluate alternative models of Olmec settlement hierarchy and political economy. Documenting and studying the site's structure and composition will yield information about its political organization, and collecting and analyzing artifact assemblages will produce data on local economic patterns and processes. Combined, these data will provide new information on the sociopolitical interactions among core and periphery sites within the region known as the Gulf Olmec Heartland.Preliminary investigation of ceramic and sculptural evidence at the site indicates that its inhabitants articulated with other Olmec centers. The nature and timing of such interactions remain unknown, however, as do the political and economic consequences of those relationships. These are significant variables for understanding intraregional associations and the long-term trajectory of Gulf Olmec civilization, as well as its impact on the emergence and development of sociopolitical complexity in Mesoamerica.The research will consist of an integrated series of survey, collection, prospecting, and mapping techniques that will detect and record landscape signatures, site constituents, and subsurface deposits. The site will be mapped using a total station, magnetometer, and electro-magnetic conductivity meter. Anthropic soil surveys will be used to examine the presence and nature of subsurface deposits, with the greater goal of understanding earlier activity loci for comparison with later site organization. Profiling of selected segments of the dynamic river cut, which has exposed significant portions of the site, will be used to link these sets of observations together to form a diachronic picture of settlement organization. Analysis of the surface collected ceramic and lithic artifact assemblages will permit an assessment of patterns of intrasite distribution and will allow inferences to be made concerning the degree to which the site's residents were involved in intraregional exchange networks. The combination of these data with photogrammetric techniques will result in a series of GIS-generated images of the site that will offer a high resolution picture of the site's occupational history.Through this multi-stage research design using non-invasive techniques, the research will evaluate contrasting explanations for the political and economic role that El Marquesillo played in the Gulf Coast Olmec sociopolitical hierarchy. The resulting data will contribute to the limited body of evidence that presently exists concerning peripheral sites during the Formative period on the southern Gulf Coast and form a base upon which future investigations can build. A broader impact of this work will be the enhancement of the co-investigator's scientific and archaeological capabilities and an improved heuristic and practical relationship between archaeologists of Mexico and the United States.