Matacanela Archaeological Project

在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，Marcie Venter博士和一个由同事组成的国际团队将在墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯（Veracruz）南部海湾沿岸进行两个季节的考古研究。这项研究的根本意义在于，它将使科学家能够在传统的社会组织层面上深入了解气候变化与社会反应之间的长期关系。今天，同样的过程正在世界许多地方的社会复杂程度相似的群体中发生。这种适应的有效性具有世界范围的影响。该研究小组由来自美国几所大学的学者以及墨西哥的研究人员和机构组成。该研究将通过检查位于图克斯特拉山脉的经典和后经典中心Matacanela，探索过去社会应对气候变化和环境退化的方式。古典时期末期（约公元800年）的特点是气候急剧变化、玉米农业停止、政治权力下放、经济重组、人口减少和移民。尽管该地区的大多数其他中心都被遗弃了，但建筑和雕塑证据强烈表明，马塔卡内拉并没有被遗弃，尽管地区崩溃，它仍然存在。本研究将评估聚落持续存在的原因与策略。研究问题需要来自与政治权威（公民仪式建筑、广场）、社区和家庭仪式、家庭组织和食品生产/加工领域相关的现场环境的数据。这些数据将通过场地的地形测绘来收集；受控的、系统的工件表面收集；地球物理调查;以及地层发掘。这些数据还将有助于完善公元800年之后相对粗糙的区域年表。在每个季节进行实地工作的同时，所有收集到的文物都将进行分析。样品将出口到美国进行高级分析。项目参与者将在美国进行额外的数据分析。PI将整合不同的数据集。这个项目的智力价值是双重的。本研究对中美洲低地社会崩溃期间的恢复力进行了评估。本研究还比较了后古典政治重组与其他海湾低地定居点。海湾中南部低地到西北部的后古典重组在很大程度上是由于来自墨西哥中部高地的纳华移民。虽然纳瓦人的移民在民族语言学上已经被记录下来，在西班牙人到达时，一些阿兹特克人居住在该地区，但与早期人工制品传统的连续性表明，后古典时期塔克斯特克社会的基础主要是建立在重新组织的当地人口基础上的。这种重组的重要组成部分可能包括长途网络的改变，以及获取权力的手段。Matacanela的这个项目将允许中南部和南部海湾低地的遗址位于更广泛的比较历史框架内。该项目的广泛影响包括为美国和墨西哥的研究人员和学生提供实地和实验室经验、论文和论文数据、同行评审的期刊文章和项目专著等形式的合作努力和学习机会。此外，研究区域最近经历了两种发展的爆炸式增长：旅游业和商业基础设施，这似乎为Catemaco市政海岸的天然气开采奠定了基础。该项目将提供重要的遗址登记数据和管理建议，供自然和文化保护机构、当地农业合作社、旅游企业家和官员共同管理文化遗产的重要和日益濒危的组成部分。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Marcie Venter and an international team of colleagues will conduct two seasons of archaeological research on the southern Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico. The fundamental significance of this research rests on the fact that it will permit scientists to gain insight into the long term relationship between climate change and societal response at a traditional level of social organization. This same process is occurring in many parts of the world today among groups of similar social complexity. The effectiveness with which such adaptations take place have worldwide implications. The research team consists of scholars from several US-based universities, and Mexican researchers and institutions. The research will explore the ways that societies have responded to climate change and environmental degradation in the past by examining the Classic and Postclassic center Matacanela, located in the Tuxtla Mountains. The end of the Classic period (ca. AD 800) was characterized by dramatic climate shifts, the cessation of maize agriculture, political decentralization, economic reorganization, demographic decline and migration. Although most other centers in the region were abandoned, architectural and sculptural evidence strongly suggests that Matacanela was not and that it persisted despite regional collapse. This study will evaluate the reasons for and strategies involved in settlement persistence. The research questions require data from site contexts associated with political authority (civic-ceremonial architecture, plazas), community and household ritual, household organization and food production/processing areas. These data will be amassed through the topographic mapping of the site; controlled, systematic surface collection of artifacts; geophysical survey; and stratigraphic excavations. These data will also help refine the regional chronology, which is relatively coarse-grained following AD 800. Concurrent with and following field work each season, all collected artifacts will be analyzed. Samples will be exported to the US for advanced analyses. The project participants will conduct additional data analysis in the US. The PI will integrate the diverse datasets. The intellectual merits of this project are two-fold. This research provides an evaluation of resilience during the collapse of a lowland Mesoamerican society. This research also compares Postclassic political reorganization with other Gulf lowland settlements. Postclassic reorganization in the south-central Gulf lowlands to the northwest was due in large part to Nahua immigration from the central Mexican highlands. Although Nahua immigration has been documented ethnolinguistically for the Tuxtlas, and some Aztec agents resided in the region at the time of Spanish arrival, continuity with earlier artifact traditions suggests that the foundation of Postclassic Tuxteco society was largely based on a reorganized local population. Important components in this reorganization may have included altered long distance networks, and means of acquiring authority. This project at Matacanela will permit sites in the south-central and southern Gulf lowlands to be situated within a broader comparative historical framework.The broader impacts of this project include collaborative efforts and learning opportunities for US and Mexican researchers and students in the form of field and laboratory experiences, thesis and dissertation data, peer-reviewed journal articles, and a project monograph. Moreover, the study region has experienced an explosion in development of two kinds lately: tourism and commercial infrastructure that seems to be setting the stage for natural gas extraction off of the Catemaco municipal coast. This project will provide important site registry data and management recommendations that natural and cultural conservation agencies, local agricultural cooperatives, tourism entrepreneurs, and officials can use to co-manage important and increasingly endangered components of cultural patrimony.