Matacanela Archaeological Project

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Marcie Venter博士和一个国际同事团队将在墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯南部墨西哥湾海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洞察气候变化和社会反应之间的长期关系。同样的过程正在当今世界许多地方的具有类似社会复杂性的群体中发生。这种适应的有效性对全世界都有影响。研究团队由来自几所美国大学的学者以及墨西哥的研究人员和机构组成。这项研究将通过考察位于塔斯特拉山脉的古典和后古典中心马塔卡内拉，探索过去社会对气候变化和环境退化的反应方式。古典时期(约公元800年)末期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，人口下降和移民。尽管该地区的大多数其他中心都被遗弃了，但建筑和雕塑证据有力地表明，马塔卡内拉并没有被遗弃，尽管该地区崩溃了，但它仍然存在。这项研究将评估定居点持续存在的原因和战略。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/加工区相关的现场环境的数据。这些数据将通过遗址的地形图绘制、有控制的、系统的文物地面收集、地球物理调查和地层挖掘来收集。这些数据还将有助于完善区域年代学，它在公元800年之后相对粗略。在每一季的田野工作的同时和之后，将分析所有收集到的文物。样品将被出口到美国进行先进的分析。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。这个项目的学术价值有两个方面。这项研究提供了对低地中美洲社会崩溃期间的复原力的评估。本研究还将后古典时期的政治重组与其他海湾低地聚落进行了比较。西北部海湾中南部低地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瓦人移民。尽管那华移民在塔克斯特拉人的种族语言中有记载，一些阿兹特克人在西班牙人到达时居住在该地区，但与早期手工艺品传统的延续表明，后古典塔克斯特科社会的基础主要是当地人口的重组。这次重组的重要组成部分可能包括改变后的长途网络，以及获得权威的手段。马塔卡内拉的这个项目将允许海湾中南部和南部低地的地点处于更广泛的比较历史框架内。该项目的更广泛影响包括美国和墨西哥的研究人员和学生的合作努力和学习机会，形式包括实地和实验室经验、论文和论文数据、同行评议的期刊文章和项目专著。此外，研究区域最近经历了两种发展的爆炸性增长：旅游和商业基础设施，这似乎正在为卡塔马科市海岸外的天然气开采铺平道路。该项目将提供重要的遗址登记数据和管理建议，自然和文化保护机构、当地农业合作社、旅游企业家和官员可以利用这些数据和建议共同管理重要的、日益濒危的文化遗产组成部分。

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.