Archaeological Survey of Late Postclassic Tlaxcala, Mexico

中美洲后古典时期晚期（约公元1200-1520年）在社会、文化和人口方面发生了根本性的变化。随着对贸易路线和原材料的竞争日益激烈，世界体系中贵重商品的交易量也在增加。墨西哥中部高地成为美索美拉主要的经济和政治核心区，随着大帝国对日益增长的经济体系的控制，这里的经济变化刺激了政治变化。随着阿兹特克三国联盟（阿兹特克帝国）巩固了对中央高地及其他地区的控制，帝国野心者之间的竞争最终得到了解决。墨西哥中部政治之间的战争是这一时期最血腥、最激烈的战争之一。虽然帝国最终取得了统治地位，但只有一个政体，特拉斯卡拉，仍然没有被征服（这与后来的殖民历史高度相关，因为除非他与自由的特拉斯卡拉结盟，否则科尔塔姆斯不会打败阿兹特克人）。该项目的目标是结合民族历史和考古数据，以更好地了解特拉斯卡拉人是如何成功地抵抗帝国吞并的。迄今为止，这个项目的研究发现，大部分来自民族历史资料，在1300年后的时期，特拉斯卡拉人建立了一个新的政治制度，尽管借鉴了纳化政治文化的一些习俗，但在许多方面却与之大相径庭。最值得注意的是，特拉斯卡拉人拒绝了纳瓦人统治的典型模式，转而支持一种以议会为基础的政府形式，这种形式允许政体中广泛的人口发表意见。第二，建立了新的官职招聘模式，注重成就而不是贵族地位。这两项战略的目的还在于更广泛地将不同族裔群体有效地纳入理事机构和社会。因此，这个政体吸引了大量来自帝国地区的持不同政见者或为逃避政治动荡和战争而移民的人。特拉斯卡兰州建设者的一个关键战略是建立一个新的首都中心，位于政治地理中心附近的高山脊线和邻近的低山丘上。这一聚落既象征着新的政体，又锻造了一个以议会为基础的统治和军事防御相一致的聚落体系。该项目之前的研究表明，选择的首都位置没有事先占用，并且在其建立之后，有一系列的建设将山脊线区域和其他城市区域塑造成适合新政治制度的环境。绘制和表面收集的文物将证实首都的建立和随后的人口快速增长的年表，并将证实该项目先前工作的初步发现，表明城市规划代表了对纳化建筑和城市传统的彻底背离。城市规划的目标是创造一个开放和高度连接的聚落模式，与大型开放和高度可达的广场特征相穿插，这些广场特征可能用于仪式和市场交易。最后，绘制地图和收集文物将有助于更好地了解该中心发展的经济和政治基础的程度。

The Mesoamerican Late Postclassic Period (ca. CE 1200-1520) featured radical transformations in society, culture, and demography. World-system exchanges of valuable goods grew in volume as did competition for trade routes and raw materials. The Central Mexican Highlands emerged as Mesomerica's major economic and political core zone, and here economic change spurred political change as large empires asserted control over the growing economic system. A sorting-out period of competition between imperial aspirants was finally resolved as the Aztec Triple Alliance (Aztec Empire) consolidated control over the Central Highlands and beyond. Wars between Central Mexican polities were among the bloodiest and most closely-fought during this period. While the Empire was eventually able to dominate, one polity alone, Tlaxcala, remained unconquered (this is highly relevant to later colonial history, since Cortés would not have defeated the Aztecs except for the fact that he allied with free Tlaxcala). The goal of this project is to combine ethnohistoric and archaeological data to better understand how the Tlaxcalans successfully resisted imperial incorporation. What this project's research has discovered to date, mostly from ethnohistoric sources, is that during the post-1300 period the Tlaxcalans crafted a new political regime that, although borrowing from some conventions of Nahua political culture, in many ways radically departed from them. Most notably, the Tlaxcalans rejected the typical pattern of Nahua rulership in favor of a council-based form of government that allowed voice to a broad cross-section of the polity's population. Secondly, new modes of recruitment to official positions were instituted that favored achievement over noble status. Both of these strategies also aimed at the effective incorporation of diverse ethnic groups into the governing body and society more broadly. As a result, the polity attracted large numbers of persons who had emigrated from imperial areas as political dissidents or to escape political turmoil and war. A key strategy of the Tlaxcalan state-builders was the foundation of a new capital center, located on a high ridge-line and adjacent low hills near the polity's geographical center. This settlement both symbolized the new polity, and forged a settlement system consistent with council-based rule and military defense. Prior research by this project indicates that the location chosen for the capital had no prior occupation, and that following its founding there was a flurry of construction that shaped the ridge-line zone and other city zones into a suitable setting for the new political regime. Mapping and surface collection of artifacts will confirm the chronology of the capital's foundation and subsequent rapid population growth, and will confirm preliminary findings of this project's prior work suggesting that the city-planning represented a radical departure from Nahua architectural and urban conventions. The goal of city planning was to create an open and highly connected settlement pattern interspersed with large open and highly accessible plaza features that might have served for ritual and market transactions. Lastly, mapping and surface collection of artifacts will aim to better understand to what degree there was an economic, as well as political, basis for the center's growth.