Small Community Analysis in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua, Mexico

墨西哥奇瓦瓦州卡萨斯格兰德斯地区的小社区分析

• 批准号: 1259010
• 负责人: Michael Whalen
• 金额: $ 13.21万
• 依托单位: University of Tulsa
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-04-01 至 2016-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1259010&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Small; Community; Analysis; Casas; Grandes

With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Michael E. Whalen will conduct three seasons of archaeological excavation and data analysis in the Casas Grandes area of Chihuahua, Mexico. This continues more than 20 years of research into the origin, operation, and collapse of the great north Mexican center of Casas Grandes. Casas Grandes long has been famous among archaeologists for its blend of domestic architecture from the southwestern US and such ceremonial constructions as flat-topped temple mounds and ball courts from farther south in Mexico. Nothing else like it is known on either side of the border. Regional reconnaissance shows that the neighbors of Casas Grandes consisted of a few large communities and many small ones. The small neighbors of Casas Grandes, however, are estimated to contain at least half of the region's total count of residential buildings. This means that most of the population lived in small sites at some point(s) in the prehistory of the region.There are several possibilities for explaining the interaction between small "outliers" and major centers. One is that small site residents were too insignificant to have played a role in regional political and economic life. This is doubtful, however, as a large fraction of the regional population thus would have been ignored by the center. A second possibility is that people once lived in small, scattered villages and then were absorbed into the growing center, resulting in the abandonment of most small villages. In a third scenario the center grew rapidly, flourished for several centuries, and finally collapsed. Collapses like this usually are accompanied by two processes: population reduction and population dispersal into smaller, more scattered communities as the central authority fails. Here, the small villages largely are post-Casas Grandes.Small site chronology is the key selecting among alternates. The present project will excavate a sample of small residential sites in the Casas Grandes river valley, the region's best environmental zone. Radiocarbon dating will be used to establish site occupational histories, and these data will be used to consider the three alternatives presented above. Other data from architecture, facilities and artifacts will be used to model how these small communities were connected to each other and to the center of Casas Grandes. Whatever the outcome of this dating and analytical work, the project has the potential to provide important new insights on questions of the origin, operation, and collapse of Casas Grandes from a heretofore unexplored perspective: the region's many small residential sites.The proposed project and others like it significantly enhance the infrastructure for research in northwest Mexico by increasing contact and collaboration between North American and Mexican archaeologists. Project personnel participate annually in Mexican archaeology conferences, give interviews and presentations for local radio, television, newspapers, and civic groups, and conduct site tours for a range of people, from school children to government officials. NSF funded projects have been a major presence in Chihuahua, and all of the related activity significantly raises the visibility of the national patrimony for the citizens of this part of Mexico.

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，迈克尔·e·惠伦博士将在墨西哥奇瓦瓦州的卡萨斯格兰德斯地区进行三个季节的考古挖掘和数据分析。对墨西哥北部大卡萨斯大中心的起源、运作和崩塌的研究持续了20多年。长期以来，卡萨斯格兰德斯在考古学家中一直很有名，因为它融合了美国西南部的家庭建筑和墨西哥南部的平顶神庙丘和球场等仪式建筑。在边界的两边都没有其他类似的东西。区域调查显示，卡萨斯格兰德斯的邻居由几个大社区和许多小社区组成。然而，Casas Grandes的小邻居估计至少包含该地区住宅建筑总数的一半。这意味着在该地区的史前时期，大多数人口都生活在小遗址中。有几种可能解释小的“异常值”和主要中心之间的相互作用。一是小遗址居民太微不足道，无法在区域政治和经济生活中发挥作用。然而，这是值得怀疑的，因为该地区很大一部分人口因此会被中央忽视。第二种可能是，人们曾经生活在分散的小村庄，后来被吸收到不断发展的中心，导致大多数小村庄被遗弃。在第三种情况下，中心迅速发展，繁荣了几个世纪，最终崩溃。这样的崩溃通常伴随着两个过程：随着中央政府的失败，人口减少和人口分散到更小、更分散的社区。这里的小村庄大多是后casas Grandes。小场地年表是选择备选场地的关键。目前的项目将在Casas Grandes河谷（该地区最好的环境区域）挖掘一个小型住宅基地样本。放射性碳定年法将用于建立现场职业历史，这些数据将用于考虑上述三种备选方案。来自建筑、设施和文物的其他数据将用于模拟这些小社区如何相互连接并与Casas Grandes中心连接。无论这项年代测定和分析工作的结果如何，该项目都有可能为Casas Grandes的起源、运作和崩溃问题提供重要的新见解，从一个迄今未被探索的角度来看：该地区的许多小型住宅基地。拟议中的项目和其他类似的项目通过增加北美和墨西哥考古学家之间的联系和合作，大大加强了墨西哥西北部研究的基础设施。项目人员每年参加墨西哥考古会议，为当地广播、电视、报纸和民间团体进行采访和演讲，并为从学生到政府官员等一系列人进行现场参观。国家科学基金会资助的项目是奇瓦瓦州的主要项目，所有相关活动都大大提高了墨西哥这一地区公民对国家遗产的认识。