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·斯皮尔曼博士将领导一个来自亚利桑那州立大学的多学科团队，在亚利桑那州中部开展一个为期两年的考古研究项目。在美国西南部的许多地区都有关于史前时代晚期地方性战争的令人信服的证据，一些模型假设敌对行动是在宏观区域层面上进行的。其中之一是维德邦联，它被描述为一个高度协调的联盟，包括10，000 - 13，000人，135个定居点，位于维德河谷中部，血腥盆地和佩里梅萨，在世纪。这个联盟被认为是为了对抗凤凰城盆地南部更大的以灌溉为基础的霍霍坎政体而结盟的。在14世纪，亚利桑那州中部真的存在大规模联盟发动的大规模地区战争吗？如果是这样的话，维德邦联是如何组织起来的，它内部的关系网是什么？如果不是，那么在史前晚期日益敌对的环境中，联盟发展到什么规模？为了解决这些问题，已经制定了三个组成部分的战略，使用陶瓷，建筑和古气候数据。通过追踪陶瓷交易，本项目调查了拟议的佛得角联盟成员之间的社会互动的地方，区域和宏观区域网络，以及他们与他们假定的霍霍坎敌人之间的社会互动。佛得角邦联模型预测了邦联成员之间的许多社会和经济联系以及货物转移。一项陶瓷成分研究，在岩相薄片分析和电子显微探针化学分析的帮助下，根据产地对来自联邦不同地区的陶器进行了分类，提供了追踪陶器在亚利桑那州中部移动的方法。 此外，建筑和古气候的证据被用来评估在何种程度上的地方和区域的解决模式所规定的防御战略实施的大规模邦联。根据维德邦联的模式，在13世纪后期，佩里梅萨上新建立了许多定居点，以守卫联盟的西侧。该项目确定定居点是否作为一个单元建造，以容纳集体迁移到防御阵地的人口。它还考虑了另一种模式，为佩里梅萨占领检查古气候指标，以确定是否佩里梅萨更有利于农业在那个时候，相比，在一个废弃的山麓地带恶化的条件立即向南。学术价值在于解决西南考古学中的一个关键问题：政治组织的最大规模是什么，推动这些发展的力量和限制是什么？ 更广泛的影响来自：1）加强与霍皮人和亚瓦派人的互动，他们的祖先领土包括佩里梅萨及其周边地区; 2）教育和研究的整合，包括本科生和研究生;和3）与BLM和Tonto国家森林土地管理人员的知识交流，他们管理和解释公众对佩里梅萨的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.