Izapa Regional Settlement Project

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，罗伯特·罗森维希博士将通过收集墨西哥恰帕斯州Soconusco地区的定居数据来调查伊萨帕州的历史。所得到的数据将有助于记录至少在形成后期（公元前350-100年）以伊萨帕为中心的等级社会的出现，并确定政体持续到早期后古典时期（公元1000-1350年）的政治性质。这项研究将从理论上有助于理解国家一级社会的起源和发展，通过记录重要的和鲜为人知的伊扎帕政体的兴起，繁盛和最终崩溃。该项目将实施一项调查策略，比较Soconusco三个环境区域之间的变化。调查工作将辅以从一个地点进行的有限的测试挖掘，可以追溯到形成时期、古典时期和后古典时期。在最基本的层面上，这项研究提出的问题是：我们这个分层的世界是如何从构成人类历史大部分时间的平等主义狩猎采集者进化而来的？现代人类在地球上存在了超过10万年之后，世界各地的等级政治组织形式在不到1万年前出现。权力和等级制度是许多社会科学研究的基本问题，考古学家在探索渗透现代生活的制度化等级制度的起源和发展方面处于独特的地位。在中美洲的大多数地区，古典时期的国家是研究的主要焦点，与此相反，Soconusco提供了一个案例，在这个案例中，早期的政治创新目前比随后的Izapa国家的崛起更好地理解。考虑到伊萨帕是中美洲太平洋沿岸最大的遗址之一，人们对它的了解令人惊讶地少。自从20世纪40年代它的土丘和雕塑出现在《国家地理杂志》的页面上以来，它就已经广为人知了。尽管有高质量的纪念性建筑地图在其核心，伊萨帕的全部范围是未知的。此外，伊萨帕维持区域的总体人口模式是未知的，在该地点长期占领的任何时候，较低层次中心的数量和分布也是未知的。这个项目将记录这些人口和政治模式，以及它们是如何随时间变化的。这项研究更广泛的影响是记录伊萨帕的政治历史，从而提高对该地区考古资源的认识。Izapa是Soconusco唯一开放的旅游景点，扩大其已知的政治历史将有助于当地和墨西哥的国家文化遗产。要做到这一点，最持久的方法之一是通过编写教材，启动一个向当地学校推广的项目。奥尔巴尼大学的研究生马克思·纳瓦罗在塔帕丘拉出生和长大，他将带头进行这项努力，为当地学校的孩子们提供一个榜样。另外两名奥尔巴尼大学的研究生将以该项目收集的数据为基础进行论文研究，两名哥斯达黎加学生将参与研究。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Robert Rosenswig will investigate the history of the Izapa state by collecting regional settlement data from the Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico. The resulting data will help document the emergence of hierarchical society centered at Izapa by at least the Late Formative period (350-100 BCE), and determine the political nature of the polity's persistence until the Early Postclassic period (CE 1000-1350). The research will contribute theoretically to an understanding of the origins and development of state-level society by documenting the important and poorly understood Izapa polity during its rise, florescence and eventual collapse. The project will implement a survey strategy that compares changes between three environmental zones in the Soconusco. Survey efforts will be complemented with limited test excavations from a site dating to each the Formative, Classic and Postclassic periods. At its most basic level, the proposed research asks: how did our stratified world evolve from the egalitarian hunter-gatherers that constitute most of human history? After over 100,000 years of the existence of modern humans on earth, hierarchical forms of political organization emerged around the world less than ten millennia ago. Power and hierarchy are fundamental issues addressed by many social sciences and archaeologists are in a unique position to explore the origins and development of the institutionalized hierarchy that permeates modern life. In contrast to most regions of Mesoamerica where Classic period states are the primary focus of study, the Soconusco provides a case where early political innovations are currently far better understood than the subsequent rise of the Izapa state. Izapa is surprisingly poorly understood considering that it is one of the largest sites on the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica and it has been well-known since the 1940s when its mounds and sculptures appeared in the pages of the National Geographic Magazine. Despite the high-quality maps of monumental architecture at its core, the full extent of Izapa is unknown. Further, the overall demographic patterns of Izapa's sustaining area are unknown as are the number and distribution of lower-tier centers from any time in the site's long occupation. This project will document these demographic and political patterns, and how they changed over time. The broader impact of this research is to document the political history of Izapa, and thereby increasing awareness of archaeological resources in the region. Izapa is the only site in the Soconusco open for tourism and expanding what is known of its political history will contribute to local as well as Mexican national cultural heritage. One of the most enduring ways in which this will be done is by initiating a program of outreach to local schools through the development of teaching materials. University of Albany graduate student Marx Navarro was born and raised in Tapachula and he will spearhead this endeavor and provide an example of what local school children could aspire to. Two other University of Albany gradate students will base their dissertations research on data collected by this project and two Costa Rican students will participate in the research.