Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Community Organization And Sport Relationships

在稻田武博士的指导下，Marijke Stoll将探索墨西哥东南部前西班牙裔社会中正式的竞争互动、社会政治冲突和公共建筑之间的交集。例如，通过体育赛事的这种互动可以服务于有价值的社交功能，远远超出观众娱乐的范围。它们提供了一个论坛，以巩固和加强文化联系，并在区域或国家框架内融合广泛的、往往是不同的个人群体。这种以地区为基础的竞争是古代社会中社区和地区政治不可或缺的。考古学作为一门学科，很好地研究了体育在遥远的过去的社会作用。前西班牙裔棒球赛是一项重要的仪式化运动，在古代墨西哥的大部分地区都有共同的文化传统。它是在大型砖石球场上演奏的，这些独特的结构就是为这个单一的目的而建造的。作为公共建筑的一种特殊类型，球馆将使社区相互区别。棒球场如何在社会环境中分布具有重要意义--在公共空间内放置棒球场将表明棒球赛对政治和日常生活的重要性。通过衡量球场的中心位置和可达性，可以推断球场在地方和地区层面的社会政治功能。这项研究评估了棒球赛与墨西哥瓦哈卡州内贾帕地区当地社区政治的交织程度。在动感十足的后经典时期(公元1000-1521年)，在内部人口扩张、定居点重组和外部帝国军队扩张的压力下，内贾帕的几个社区建造了多个棒球场。这表明，内贾帕的居民可能利用棒球赛来融合不同的社会阶层，突出社会差异，并解决或加剧社区内和社区间的冲突。这项研究将通过场地勘测、地形测绘和对球场布置和分布的地理空间分析，检验棒球赛是内贾帕当地精英和不同社区使用的关键工具的假设。具体地说，该项目关注两个广泛的问题。首先，球场对社区社会组织来说有多重要，球场内和球场周围举行的棒球赛和其他仪式活动的目标观众是谁？第二，球馆的分布是否与内贾帕复杂的市政中心的分布重叠？在当地和区域范围内对奈杰帕的球馆进行系统研究，有助于理解一项竞技运动是如何成为中美洲重要的社会政治机构的。作为对奈杰帕球馆的第一次深入研究，该项目将与当地社区合作进行，目的是为子孙后代记录、记录和保护当地文化遗产。研究结果将通过出版物和学术场所的演讲、提交给墨西哥政府的官方报告和针对更广泛受众的项目网站来传播。来自内贾帕的数据将被添加到瓦哈卡的一个更大的棒球场地理数据库中，这将改善信息的可用性，并为今后的研究提供进一步的统计和地理空间分析。

Under the supervision of Dr. Takeshi Inomata, Marijke Stoll will explore the intersections between formalized competitive interaction, sociopolitical conflict, and public architecture among Prehispanic societies in southeastern Mexico. Such interaction through for example sporting events can serve valuable social functions which extend well beyond viewer entertainment. They provide a forum to consolidate and strengthen cultural affiliation and integrate broad and often diverse groups of individuals within a regional or national framework. Such regional based competition was integral to community and regional politics among ancient societies. Archaeology as a discipline is well-placed to investigate the social role of sports in the distant past. The Prehispanic ballgame was an important ritualized sport and shared cultural tradition that was played throughout much of ancient Mexico. It was played in large masonry ballcourts, unique structures that were constructed for this single purpose. As a special category of public architecture, ballcourts would have distinguished communities from each other. How ballcourts were distributed across the social landscape was significant - where a ballcourt was emplaced within public space would express the importance of the ballgame to political and daily life. By measuring the centrality of the ballcourt and how accessible it was, it is possible to infer their sociopolitical function at the local and regional levels. The research assesses the degree to which the ballgame was interwoven with local community politics in the Nejapa region of Oaxaca, Mexico. During the dynamic Postclassic (AD 1000 - 1521), a time of internal population expansion, settlement reorganization, and outside pressure from expanding imperial armies, several communities in Nejapa constructed multiple ballcourts. This suggests that residents of Nejapa may have used the ballgame to integrate different social strata, highlight social differences, and resolve or heighten intra- and intercommunity conflicts. The research will test the hypothesis that the ballgame was a key tool used by both local elites and different communities in Nejapa through site reconnaissance, topographical mapping, and geospatial analysis of ballcourt placement and distribution. Specifically, the project focuses on two broad questions. First, how central was the ballcourt to community social organization and who would have been the intended audience for ballgames and other ritual activities performed in and around the court? Second, does the distribution of ballcourts overlap with the distribution of complex civic centers in Nejapa? Systematic study of the ballcourts in Nejapa at the local and regional scales enhances understanding of how a competitive sport became an important sociopolitical institution in Mesoamerica. As the first in-depth study of the ballcourts in Nejapa, this project will be conducted in collaboration with area communities with the goal of documenting, recording and preserving the local cultural heritage for future generations to come. Study results will be disseminated through publications and presentations at scholarly venues, official reports for the Mexican government, and a project website targeted at broader audiences. Data from Nejapa will be added to a much larger geodatabase on ballcourts in Oaxaca that will improve the availability of information as well as permit further statistical and geospatial analyses for future research.