Collaborative Research: Exchange, Craft Specialization And The Development Of Social Complexity

本研究的中心目标是了解复杂的社会实体如国家是如何发展的。在“传统”社会中，是什么联系把分布在数千平方英里的大群体的个人连接成有效运作的社会单位？经济因素在多大程度上是中心因素，驱动力在社会结构中的什么地方出现？考古学可以有效地解决这个问题，因为它可以追踪千年时间跨度的发展轨迹。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下。Deborah L. Nichols和Wesley D. Stoner将研究早期复杂社会形成过程中工艺专业化和交换的发展，这是考古学的核心研究方向。墨西哥中部是研究这些发展的关键区域，因为它是早期一系列有影响力的大州和城市发展的中心地带。尼科尔斯和斯托纳以及来自美国和墨西哥的一组合作者将在阿尔蒂卡遗址进行调查和挖掘，这是墨西哥特奥蒂瓦坎山谷最早的农业定居点和黑曜石工作地点之一，可追溯到早期和中期形成期（约公元前1300-850年）。Altica是墨西哥盆地保存最完好的第一批农业村庄之一。它也是北部盆地唯一已知的早期村庄之一，使用来自奥通巴的黑曜石，随着刀片制造的发展，黑曜石在中美洲广泛交换。因此，Altica成为连接特奥蒂瓦坎河谷与中美洲其他地区的大规模互动网络中的活跃节点。这些早期网络的强化和扩展形成了社会和经济基础，推动了随后的盆地政治在中美洲的突出地位。Altica的考古调查和发掘旨在重建该遗址在建立这些早期政治和经济网络中的作用。该小组将调查Altica所在的山脊，并对该地点进行深入调查和绘制地图，并系统地收集地表文物。在调查和有限的地球物理勘探的基础上，挖掘将集中在可能具有地下特征的人工制品集中的区域，以获得具有代表性的人工制品样本。这些数据将有助于解决关键问题：是新兴精英和政治经济推动了工艺专业化，还是它起源于早期农民的家庭经济？在Altica的实地考察将为早期乡村生活、农业土地利用以及专门的黑曜石工具制造和交换系统的发展提供新的知识。为了了解Altica在早期贸易网络和工艺专业化组织中的作用，研究人员将分析墨西哥盆地其他早期和中期形成遗址的关键藏品，并应用多技术方法对来自墨西哥中部宏观区域的陶瓷和黑曜石进行成分分析。该项目的更广泛影响是更新对墨西哥盆地形成时期的研究，该时期跨越了第一个村庄的建立到第一个城市和州的发展。在过去的四分之一世纪里，墨西哥盆地形成地点几乎缺乏面向问题的研究，该项目是解决这一问题的重要一步。该项目将为年轻的考古学家和学生提供培训和研究，近几十年来，他们在墨西哥盆地形成时期的遗址进行研究的机会有限。该项目涉及与来自墨西哥和美国的考古学家和学生的大量合作，并将为国际科学合作做出贡献。

The central goal of this research is to understand how complex social entities such as states develop. What are the links which serve in "traditional" societies to join large groups of individuals spread over thousands of square miles into effectively functioning social units? To what extent are economic factors central and where in the social structure do the driving forces arise? Archaeology can effectively address this issue since it can trace developmental trajectories often over millennial time spans. With support from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Deborah L. Nichols and Wesley D. Stoner will investigate the development of craft specialization and exchange in the formation of early complex societies, a central research directive for archaeology. Central Mexico is a key region to study these developments as the heartland for the development of a series of large and influential early states and cities. Nichols and Stoner and a team of collaborators from the U.S. and Mexico will survey and excavate at the site of Altica, one of the earliest farming settlements and obsidian-working sites in the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, that dates to the Early and Middle Formative (ca. 1300-850 BC). Altica is one of the best-preserved of the first farming villages in the Basin of Mexico. It is also one of the only known early villages in the northern Basin that worked obsidian from the Otumba source that, with the development of blade making, became widely exchanged in Mesoamerica. Altica thus became an active node within broad-scale interaction networks that connected the Teotihuacan Valley to other parts of Mesoamerica. Intensification and expansion of these early networks formed the social and economic foundation that propelled subsequent Basin polities to prominence in Mesoamerica.Archaeological survey and excavations at Altica aim to reconstruct the site's role in establishing these early political and economic networks. The team will survey the ridge on which Altica is located and intensively survey and map the site itself and make systematic collections of surface artifacts. Based on the survey and limited geophysical prospection, excavations will focus on areas with artifact concentrations of possible subsurface features to obtain representative samples of artifacts in context. These data will help address to key questions: did emerging elites and the political economy prompt craft specialization or did its origins lie in the household economy of early farmers? Fieldwork at Altica will contribute new knowledge about early village life, agricultural landuse, and the development of specialized obsidian tool manufacturing and exchange systems. To understand Altica's role in the organization of early trading networks and craft specialization, the researchers will analyze artifacts from key collections of other Early and Middle Formative sites in the Basin of Mexico and apply a multi-technique approach to compositional analyses of ceramics and obsidian from the larger Central Mexico macro-region. The broader impact of this project is to renew research on the Formative period in the Basin of Mexico that spanned the founding of the first villages to the development of the first cities and states. This project is an important step in addressing the near lack of problem-oriented research at Formative sites in the Basin of Mexico over the past quarter century. The project will provide training and research for younger archaeologists and students who in recent decades have had limited opportunities for research at Formative sites in the Basin of Mexico. The project involves substantial collaboration with archaeologists and students from Mexico and the US and will contribute to international scientific cooperation.