Alliance and Landscape: Perry Mesa, Arizona in the Fourteenth Century

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，大卫·阿博特博士和凯瑟琳·斯皮尔曼博士将带领亚利桑那州立大学的一个多学科团队，在亚利桑那州中部进行为期两年的考古研究项目。在史前晚期，美国西南部的许多地区都记录了地方性战争的令人信服的证据，一些模型假设在宏观区域层面上存在敌对行动。其中包括佛得角邦联，它被描述为一个高度协调的联盟，在14世纪期间，在佛得角河谷中部、血腥盆地和佩里梅萨的135个定居点中，有1万至1.3万人。这个联盟被认为是为了对抗南部凤凰盆地一个更大的、以灌溉为基础的霍霍坎政体而联合起来的。14世纪在亚利桑那州中部，大规模联盟发动的区域战争真的存在吗？如果是这样的话，佛得角联盟是如何组织起来的，其中的关系网又是怎样的呢？如果没有，那么在史前晚期日益敌对的环境中，联盟的发展规模有多大？为了解决这些问题，我们制定了一个三要素策略，利用陶瓷、建筑和古气候数据。通过追踪陶瓷交易，该项目调查了拟议中的佛得角联盟成员之间以及他们与假想的霍霍坎敌人之间的地方、区域和宏观区域社会互动网络。佛得角联盟模型预测了许多社会和经济联系以及联盟成员之间的货物转移。在岩石薄片分析和电子探针化学分析的辅助下，一项陶瓷成分研究根据产地对来自该联盟不同地区的陶器进行了分类，为追踪陶器在亚利桑那州中部的移动提供了手段。此外，建筑和古气候证据被用来评估当地和区域定居模式在多大程度上受到大规模联盟实施的防御战略的支配。根据佛得角联盟的模式，在12世纪晚期，在佩里梅萨新建立了许多定居点，以保护联盟的西翼。该项目确定了定居点是否作为一个单元来建设，以容纳大规模移动的人口，以占据防御位置。它还考虑了Perry Mesa占领的另一种模型，通过检查古气候指标来确定Perry Mesa在当时是否更有利于农业，而不是直接向南的废弃山麓地带的恶化条件。这本书的学术价值在于解决了西南考古学中的一个关键问题：政治组织起来的最大规模是什么？推动这些发展的力量和制约因素是什么？更广泛的影响来自：1)加强与霍皮人和亚瓦派人的互动，他们的祖先领地包括佩里梅萨及其周边地区；2)教育与研究的整合，包括本科生和研究生；3)与BLM和Tonto国家森林土地管理者进行知识交流，他们管理并向公众解释佩里梅萨史前占领的历史和性质。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. David Abbott and Dr. Katherine Spielmann will lead a multi-disciplinary team from Arizona State University, to conduct a two-year archaeological research project in central Arizona. Compelling evidence for endemic warfare during the late prehistoric times has been documented in many areas of the American Southwest, and some models postulate hostilities at a macro-regional level. Among them is the Verde Confederacy, which has been described as a highly coordinated alliance that encompassed 10,000-13,000 people at 135 settlements in the middle Verde River valley, Bloody Basin, and Perry Mesa during the 14th century. This confederacy is believed to have been aligned for conflict against a larger, irrigation-based Hohokam polity in the Phoenix basin to the south. Did marco-regional warfare perpetrated by large-scale alliances truly exist during the 1300s in central Arizona? If it did, how was the Verde Confederacy organized and what was the web of relations within it? If it did not, at what scale(s) did alliances develop in the increasing hostile landscape of the late prehistoric period?To address these questions, a three-component strategy has been formulated, using ceramic, architectural, and paleoclimatic data. By tracing ceramic transactions, this project investigates the local, regional, and macro-regional networks of social interaction among members of the proposed Verde Confederacy, and between them and their postulated Hohokam enemies. The Verde Confederacy model predicts numerous social and economic ties and the transfer of goods among the confederacy members. A ceramic compositional study, aided by petrographic thin section analysis and chemical assays with an electron microprobe, categorizes the pottery from different portions of the confederacy according to provenance, providing the means to trace the movement of pots across central Arizona. In addition, architectural and paleoclimatic evidence is used to evaluate the extent to which the local and regional settlement patterns were dictated by a defensive strategy implemented by a large-scale confederacy. According to the Verde Confederacy model, numerous settlements were newly established in the late 1200s on Perry Mesa to guard the alliance's western flank. This project determines if settlements were constructed as a unit to accommodate a population moving en masse to take up defensive positions. It also considers an alternative model for the Perry Mesa occupation by examining paleoclimatic indicators to determine if Perry Mesa was more conducive to farming at that time, as compared to deteriorating conditions in an abandoned foothills zone immediately to the south. The intellectual merit rests on addressing a key question in Southwest archaeology: What was the maximum scale at which polities organized themselves, and what were the forces and constraints that drove those developments? The broader impacts come from: 1) enhanced interaction with the Hopi and Yavapai peoples, whose ancestral territories included Perry Mesa and its immediate surroundings; 2) the integration of education and research that includes both undergraduate and graduate students; and 3) knowledge exchange with BLM and Tonto National Forest land managers who manage and interpret for the public the history and nature of the prehistoric occupation on Perry Mesa.