Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Prehispanic Settlement Systems and Landscapes in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin, Michoacan, Mexico

博士论文改进资助：墨西哥米却肯州帕茨夸罗湖盆地的前西班牙定居系统和景观

• 批准号: 1151985
• 负责人: Helen Pollard
• 金额: $ 1.02万
• 依托单位: Michigan State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-01-15 至 2012-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1151985&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Prehispanic

Under the guidance of Dr. Helen Pollard, Christopher Stawski will examine the settlement of the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (LPB) by the Tarascan Empire from the Late Preclassic (100 B.C.) to the time of Spanish Conquest (circa A.D. 1525). Located in the highlands of the Mexican state of Michoacán, the LPB was the core of the Tarascan Empire, a major rival of the Aztecs. This lake basin has been the focus of not only archaeological and anthropological research, but also geological, geographical, ethnohistoric, and paleoecological research. Mr. Stawski's research will combine all these types of data into a multi-disciplinary, multi-scalar analysis that will explore the process of settlement and the ways in which the Tarascans and their ancestors modified, adapted and cultivated the landscape. The research is important because the region underwent significant environmental change over this time period and the work will show how humans living in a traditional society responded to this change to maintain a functioning and expanding social system. The work is directly important because it will increase understanding of many societies in multiple parts of today's world.Due to firsthand accounts from the Spanish, and the rich ethnohistoric and archaeological data, much is known about the Tarascan State during the Late Postclassic time period that led into the Spanish conquest (A.D. 1350 to 1525). However, what is still relatively unknown is the manner in which the lake basin became the core of a major Mesoamerican empire. The goal of this research is to provide a longitudinal study of the peopling of the lake basin, including analysis that will answer questions of how and why certain communities were settled, moved, or grew during certain time periods. Key to this is the nature of the human-environmental relationships in the lake basin, and how they changed the foundations of the socio-political setting of the area. Through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), high resolution satellite imagery, and an archaeological database that has collected and accumulated data from the past 40 years of work in the LPB, Mr.Stawski will be able to map and analyze the communities and landscape over a period of 1,600 years. This will provide a means to determine the variables that affected cultural transformations, environmental fluctuations, and state emergence at varying scales and with multiple lines of evidence. This research will have a broader impact, both through its intellectual merit as well as on the social science community. It will continue a long tradition of multi-disciplinary work, and contribute to on-going collaborative efforts between American, Mexican and French researchers in archaeology, anthropology, history and the physical sciences. The project should make a direct contribution to the literature on human-environmental relationships and the emergence of secondary states. Furthermore, this research will be an outlet for the accumulated data of 40 years of research in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, and will be able to provide new and updated data for the region that has yet to be published and presented. This proposed research would provide a means for this data to be disseminated to other academic and professional forums, in hopes that this renewed interest in West Mexican anthropology, archaeology, and ecology will spark an international and inter-disciplinary movement towards intellectual collaboration.

在海伦·波拉德博士的指导下，克里斯托弗·斯塔夫斯基将研究塔拉斯坎帝国从前古典晚期（公元前100年）到西班牙征服时期（大约公元1525年）在Pátzcuaro湖盆地（LPB）的定居点。LPB位于墨西哥Michoacán州的高地，是阿兹特克人的主要对手塔拉斯坎帝国的核心。该湖盆不仅是考古和人类学研究的重点，而且是地质、地理、民族历史和古生态研究的重点。斯塔夫斯基先生的研究将把所有这些类型的数据结合成一个多学科、多标量的分析，将探索定居的过程，以及塔拉斯坎人和他们的祖先修改、适应和培育景观的方式。这项研究很重要，因为该地区在这段时间内经历了重大的环境变化，这项工作将展示生活在传统社会中的人类如何应对这种变化，以维持一个功能和扩大的社会系统。这项工作非常重要，因为它将增进对当今世界多个地区许多社会的理解。由于西班牙人的第一手资料，以及丰富的民族历史和考古资料，人们对塔拉斯坎州在后古典时期晚期（导致西班牙征服）（公元1350年至1525年）有了很多了解。然而，湖区是如何成为一个重要的中美洲帝国的核心的，仍然是相对未知的。这项研究的目标是提供湖盆人口的纵向研究，包括分析如何以及为什么某些社区在特定时期定居，移动或增长的问题。这其中的关键是湖盆中人与环境关系的本质，以及它们如何改变了该地区社会政治环境的基础。通过使用地理信息系统（GIS）、高分辨率卫星图像，以及一个从过去40年的工作中收集和积累数据的考古数据库，stawski先生将能够绘制和分析1600年来的社区和景观。这将提供一种方法来确定影响文化转型、环境波动和国家出现的变量，这些变量在不同的尺度上和多种证据线上。这项研究将通过其知识价值和社会科学界产生更广泛的影响。它将延续多学科工作的悠久传统，并为美国、墨西哥和法国研究人员在考古学、人类学、历史学和自然科学方面的持续合作做出贡献。该项目应对人类与环境关系和次级状态出现的文献作出直接贡献。此外，这项研究将成为Pátzcuaro湖流域40年研究积累数据的一个出口，并将能够为该地区尚未发表和介绍的新的和更新的数据。这项拟议的研究将为将这些数据传播到其他学术和专业论坛提供一种手段，希望这种对西墨西哥人类学、考古学和生态学的新兴趣将引发一场国际和跨学科的智力合作运动。