Water, Politics, and the Built Environment: Human Eco-dynamics and the Origin of the Tarascan State, Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico

水、政治和建筑环境：人类生态动力学和塔拉斯卡州的起源，墨西哥米却肯州帕茨夸罗湖

• 批准号: 0818662
• 负责人: Christopher Fisher
• 金额: $ 20.91万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-03-01 至 2012-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0818662&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Water; Politics; Built; Environment; Human

One of the great challenges for the 21st century will be creating solutions to linked social and environmental change. Archaeology is uniquely poised to make a significant contribution to this debate by helping to explain trajectories of socio-ecosystem evolution over long time scales. With National Science Foundation support Dr. Christopher Fisher, Dr. Helen Pollard, and an international team of colleagues will conduct two seasons of multi-disciplinary research in West Central Mexico to explore relationships between climatic fluctuation, landscape change, and the formation of the Prehistoric Tarascan (Purépecha) Empire. At the time of European contact the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (LPB) was the geopolitical core of the Tarascan Empire and has long been recognized as a Mesoamerican core region. Prior to European conquest the LPB contained a large population, centralized settlement system, social stratification, and a highly engineered environment.Current explanations for Tarascan state development (~A.D. 1350) highlight a "perfect storm" of increasing social complexity and competition, climatically induced lake transgression, and associated changes in the agrarian potential of the region, but the timing, extant, and interrelationships between these variables remains unclear. Three interrelated propositions critical to a refined understanding of human ecodynamics and the Tarascan State guide the project. First, was there a Basin-wide lake transgression around the time of Tarascan State formation? Next, what was the nature of socio-political organization in the region? Finally, what was the condition of the Postclassic landscape? The timing, extent, and associations between these changes remains unknown and to capitalize on recent research, extend the utility of extent models, and move archaeology in the region forward new research is needed. This study will initiate an innovative program of multidisciplinary research by archaeologists, geologists, and geographers from the United States and Mexico, including full coverage settlement pattern survey, landscape survey, and environmental excavation within an important portion of the LPB, to expand the utility of current models and better understand the development of the Late Postclassic (A.D. 1350-1520) Tarascan State/Empire. This research will make a direct contribution to explanations for the development of the archaic Tarascan state and its expansion into an empire, Central Mexican prehistory, and serve as an important anthropological example of coupled human/natural systems over long time frames. Most importantly this work will more fully explore the timing, extent, and associations between these three critical factors to construct better models and analogs for the LPB as a whole, and for the region in general. Ultimately this knowledge can aid local conservation efforts by correlating results with local and global climatic indices, models of land degradation, and the feasibility of applying local ecological knowledge to modern problems. Students from Mexico, the United States, and Europe will participate in this research for their MA and Ph.D. research.

21世纪最大的挑战之一将是为社会和环境变化寻找解决方案。考古学是独一无二的，它可以通过帮助解释社会生态系统在长时间尺度上的进化轨迹，为这场辩论做出重大贡献。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，克里斯托弗·费舍尔博士、海伦·波拉德博士和一个由同事组成的国际团队将在墨西哥中西部进行两季的多学科研究，探索气候波动、景观变化和史前塔拉斯坎帝国（pur<s:1> pecha）形成之间的关系。在欧洲人接触时，Pátzcuaro湖盆地（LPB）是塔拉斯坎帝国的地缘政治核心，长期以来一直被认为是中美洲的核心地区。在欧洲人征服之前，LPB拥有庞大的人口、集中的定居系统、社会分层和高度工程化的环境。塔拉斯坎州发展的现代解释(~公元1350年)强调了社会复杂性和竞争增加的“完美风暴”，气候引起的湖泊海侵，以及该地区农业潜力的相关变化，但这些变量的时间、存在和相互关系尚不清楚。三个相互关联的命题对人类生态动力学和塔拉斯坎州的精确理解至关重要。首先，在塔拉斯坎州形成的时候是否有一个盆地范围的湖泊海侵？其次，该地区社会政治组织的性质是什么？最后，后古典景观的条件是什么？这些变化之间的时间、程度和联系仍然未知，为了利用最近的研究，扩展范围模型的效用，并推动该地区的考古学向前发展，需要进行新的研究。这项研究将启动一个由来自美国和墨西哥的考古学家、地质学家和地理学家进行的多学科研究的创新项目，包括在LPB的重要部分进行全覆盖的定居模式调查、景观调查和环境挖掘，以扩大现有模型的效用，更好地了解后古典晚期（公元1350-1520年）塔拉斯坎州/帝国的发展。这项研究将为解释古代塔拉斯坎州的发展及其向帝国的扩张、墨西哥中部史前的发展做出直接贡献，并作为人类/自然系统在长时间框架内耦合的重要人类学例子。最重要的是，这项工作将更充分地探索这三个关键因素之间的时间、程度和关联，从而为整个LPB和整个地区构建更好的模型和类似物。最终，这些知识可以通过将结果与当地和全球气候指数、土地退化模型以及将当地生态知识应用于现代问题的可行性相关联来帮助当地的保护工作。来自墨西哥、美国和欧洲的学生将参与这项研究，进行他们的硕士和博士研究。