Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Household Spaces and Everyday Practices at Xaltocan Under Aztec Imperial Expansion

在伊丽莎白·M博士的指导下，布伦菲尔，丽莎奥弗霍尔泽将审查社会，政治和经济转型后，在后经典墨西哥中部网站的Xaltocan征服和融入阿兹特克帝国。因此，这个项目将揭示战争，帝国扩张，遗弃和流离失所的过程，人类学常年关注的主题。奥弗霍尔泽女士将评估民族历史学的断言，即在长期战争后被征服，哈尔托坎被当地居民抛弃，然后与阿兹特克贡金支付者重新定居。她还将探讨平民在这种新的背景下改革日常生活的方式。实地考察将包括对两个已知含有国内存款的土丘进行水平挖掘，这些存款可以追溯到并入阿兹特克帝国之前和之后。如果民族历史学的陈述是准确的，仔细的挖掘应该会发现遗址被破坏、迅速废弃和占领中断的证据。对房屋的背景分析和其中文物的分布将有助于重建并入阿兹特克国家之前和之后日常生活的空间惯例。然而，由于许多家居用品经常被清扫并放入垃圾桶中，或者在房屋被遗弃时被业主拿走，因此它们在房屋内的存在和位置可能无法反映它们的使用地点。因此，Overholtzer女士还将对不受这些过程影响的微量残留物进行分析，例如古代活动的化学特征和因踩踏而嵌入地板中的文物碎片。这项研究将通过以下方式做出理论贡献：1）提供平民战争和征服经历的长期案例研究; 2）考虑自下而上的过程和Xaltocan的家庭决策，例如逃离或重建的决定，这有助于阿兹特克帝国的特征。这个项目批判性地改变了分析框架，将重点放在不断变化的政治经济中的平民选择上，而不是放在精英对平民生活的自上而下的限制上。因此，它将使人们能够更全面地了解帝国，考虑所有人在帝国进程中的作用。在墨西哥，民族传统是一种强烈的自豪感。奥弗霍尔泽女士将创造更多的知识，这一遗产，并分发它在几个方面：通过培训居民在考古方法，提供现场图尔斯参观当地学校，在当地博物馆建设一个展览，并通过当地文化中心分发研究成果。更广泛地说，研究结果将以报告的形式向墨西哥国家人类学和历史研究所传播，并以论文和出版物的形式向世界各地的学术界传播。其他更广泛的影响包括促进国际教学和学习。该项目将为来自墨西哥和美国代表性不足群体的两名年轻考古学家提供机会，以获得宝贵的实地经验。通过开发新的多媒体课程材料和通过互联网网站传播考古信息，作者将鼓励在大学课堂内外学习。

Under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, Lisa Overholtzer will examine the social, political, and economic transition at the Postclassic Central Mexican site of Xaltocan upon its conquest and integration into the Aztec empire. Thus, this project will shed light on warfare, imperial expansion, and abandonment and displacement processes, topics of perennial concern within anthropology. Ms Overholtzer will evaluate ethnohistoric assertions that, having been conquered after a long war, Xaltocan was abandoned by its native population and then resettled with Aztec tribute payers. She will also explore the ways in which commoners reformed everyday life in this new context. Fieldwork will include horizontal excavations of two house mounds known to contain domestic deposits dating to before and after incorporation into the Aztec empire. Careful excavation should reveal evidence of site destruction, rapid abandonment, and a hiatus in occupation, if ethnohistoric statements are accurate. The contextual analysis of houses and the distribution of artifacts within them will help reconstruct the spatial routines of daily life before and after incorporation into the Aztec state. However, because many household items were regularly swept up and placed in trash or were taken by their owners when the house was abandoned, their presence and location within a house may not reflect their places of use. Therefore, Ms Overholtzer will also employ analyses of micro-residues - such as chemical signatures of ancient activities and small fragments of artifacts that become imbedded in floors with trampling -that are not affected by these processes. This research will make a theoretical contribution by 1) offering a long-term case study of commoner experiences of war and conquest, and 2) considering bottom-up processes and household decisions at Xaltocan, such as the decisions to flee or rebuild, that contributed to the character of the Aztec empire. This project critically shifts the frame of analysis to focus on commoner choices within a changing political economy, rather than on top-down elite constraints on commoner life. As a result, it will allow one to understand empires in a more comprehensive way that considers the roles of all people in imperial processes. Within Mexico a strong sense of pride rests on national heritage. Ms Overholtzer will create additional knowledge of this heritage and distribute it in several contexts: by training residents in archaeological methods, providing site tours to local schools, constructing an exhibit in the local museum, and distributing research results through the local cultural center. More broadly, research findings will be disseminated in the form of reports to Mexico's National Institute for Anthropology and History, and in dissertation and publication form to academic communities worldwide. Additional broader impacts include the promotion of teaching and learning internationally. The project will provide opportunities for two young archaeologists from underrepresented groups in Mexico and the United States to gain valuable field experience. Through the development of new multi-media curriculum materials and the dissemination of archaeological information via an internet website, the author will encourage learning in university classrooms and beyond.