Cerro Jazmin Archaeological Project: A Study of Urbanism in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico

目前，世界上一半以上的人口生活在城市，这使得对城市化的研究成为人类学的中心，并与解决当前围绕城市生活和可持续发展的全球挑战和辩论有关。Cerro Jazmín考古项目(CJAP)研究了一座断断续续居住了近1800年的古城，以了解这座城市的形式、功能和随着时间的推移对环境的影响。古城Cerro Jazmín位于墨西哥瓦哈卡州山区Mixteca Alta地区，那里的现代农业社区正艰难地依靠农业经济生存。通过了解Cerro Jazmín的占领和农业历史，该项目将调查可持续和不可持续的城市化的不同模式。CJAP第一阶段，也是由NSF资助的，确定了在古城长期但断断续续的占领历史，地貌数据研究确定了与公元10世纪大规模城市发展相对应的一段时期的景观稳定和土壤形成。这一发现表明，这座城市能够在人口增长和环境之间取得平衡，即使至少是暂时的。这一稳定时期之后是侵蚀和梯田建设的时期。CJAP第二阶段将调查城市的结构、功能和粮食生产系统，以了解Cerro Jazmín遵循的成功和失败的城市化模式。这些发现和拟议的调查将建立在越来越多的研究基础上，这些研究发现，人口增加不一定会导致土地退化。相反，需要正确的土地管理和大量人口的有针对性的劳动力投入，以建立和维护与城市中心相关的人为生产景观。在第二阶段，该项目将对居民区、公民仪式区和农业区进行考古挖掘，以了解城市的政治和经济功能和显赫地位(反映在纪念性建筑和农业梯田上)与高地位和低地位家庭活动之间的关系。该项目将研究纪念性建筑、工艺品生产和外国商品，以调查城市的地方和区域功能及其在区域贸易和政治互动领域的参与。调查将集中在住宅稳定的时间(早期经典)，可能被遗弃的时间(晚期经典)，以及重新占领(后经典)。今天，城市化对环境的影响正变得越来越成问题，Cerro Jazmín为人类的城市体验提供了一个宝贵的案例研究。从战略上讲，考古学将对当前的社会-自然研究和关于可持续性以及人类行动和城市化的影响的辩论做出广泛贡献。在米克斯泰卡阿尔塔平原，土地和水是稀有商品，霜冻是一个恒定的风险。尽管如此，考古记录表明，尽管存在这些挑战，城市社区仍蓬勃发展了几个世纪。也许该项目最重要的贡献是它将调查：古代Mixtec遵循了哪些城市战略，以在具有挑战性的环境中为密集的城市人口种植粮食？旨在回答这个问题的努力不仅会引起学者的兴趣，也会引起今天试图在Mixtec高地生存的农村社区的兴趣。

Currently, over half of the world's population lives in cities, making the study of urbanism central to anthropology and relevant in addressing current global challenges and debates surrounding urban living and sustainability. The Cerro Jazmín Archaeological Project (CJAP) studies an ancient city that was intermittently inhabited for nearly 1800 years to learn about the city's form, function, and environmental impact through time. The ancient city of Cerro Jazmín is located in the mountainous Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca, Mexico, where modern farming communities are struggling to survive on an agricultural economy. By learning about the history of occupation and agricultre at Cerro Jazmín the project will investigate different models of sustainable and unsustainable urbanism. Phase I of CJAP, also funded by NSF, identified a long, but intermittent history of occupation at the ancient city and geomorphological data study identified a period of landscape stability and soil formation at a time corresponding with massive urban growth in the 10th century AD. This find suggests that the city was able to strike a balance, if at least momentary, between population growth and the environment. This period of stability was followed by one of erosion and terrace construction. CJAP Phase II will investigate the city's structure, function, and system of food production to learn about the successful and failed models of urbanism followed at Cerro Jazmín. These finds and the proposed investigations will build on a growing number of studies that have found that higher populations need not result in land degradation. Instead, correct land management and targeted labor inputs from large populations are needed to build and maintain anthropogenic landscapes of production associated with urban centers. In Phase II the project will conduct archaeological excavations of residential, civic-ceremonial, and agricultural areas to learn about the relationship between the city's political and economic function and prominence (reflected on monumental architecture and agricultural terraces) and the activities of high- and low-status households. The project will study monumental architecture, craft production, and foreign goods to investigate the city's local and regional function and its involvement in regional trade and political interaction spheres. The investigations will focus on times of residential stability (Early Classic), possible abandonment (Late Classic), and re-occupation (Postclassic). Today the environmental impacts of urbanism are becoming increasingly problematic and Cerro Jazmín provides a valuable case study on humanity's urban experience. Archaeology is strategically poised to make a broad contribution to current socio-natural studies and debates pertaining to sustainability and the impacts of human action and urbanism.In the Mixteca Alta flat land and water are rare commodities and frost is a constant risk. Still, the archaeological record demonstrates that despite these challenges urban communities flourished for centuries. Perhaps the project's most significant contribution is that it will investigate: What urban strategies did the ancient Mixtec follow to grow food for dense urban populations in a challenging environment? Efforts directed towards answering this question will be of interest not only to scholars, but also to rural communities trying to survive in the Mixtec highlands today.