Reconstructing Vertebrate Exploitation and Resource Focus at Ujuxte, Guatemala

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，托马斯·威克博士将分析在危地马拉太平洋沿岸乌尤特考古遗址出土的动物遗骸。乌克尤特追溯到形成时期，因此记录了中美洲复杂社会组织的兴起——在这个阶段，社会从一种小群体频繁迁移的移动狩猎和采集生活方式转变为一种更稳定的存在，聚集成大型定居村庄。与这一过程相关的是更复杂的政治组织形式的发展，在这种组织形式中，平等主义的狩猎聚集生活方式被一种更等级的形式所取代，这种形式被纳入“酋长制”一词。“虽然这种转变在世界范围内都有很好的记录，但考古学家并不清楚是什么因素导致了高地位酋长的出现，社会分层在整个社会中延伸到什么程度，或者是什么因素使酋长能够保持他们的权力。”尤尤特覆盖了形成时期相当长的时间跨度，并产生了大量的动物遗骸。这些都是食物消费的结果，通过分析它们在整个遗址的空间分布，它们提供了对社会分层问题的见解。有可能确定来自鹿等非常受欢迎的物种的最佳肉块是否在空间上集中并与少数住宅相关，或者它们是否更均匀地分布在整个站点上。当从历时的角度来看时，这些数据将提供对地位性质随时间变化的洞察。这项研究很重要，因为它解决了一个核心的人类学问题。它将提供许多考古学家感兴趣的信息，并将增加对中美洲史前史的了解。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Thomas Wake will analyze faunal remains excavated at the archaeological site of Ujuxte in Pacific coastal Guatemala. Ujuxte dates to the Formative period and thus documents the rise of complex social organization in Middle America - the stage at which societies shifted from a mobile hunting and gathering way of life when small groups moved frequently over the landscape to a more settled existence with aggregation into large settled villages. Associated with the process is the development of more complex political forms of organization in which the egalitarian hunter gather lifestyle is replaced by a more hierarchical form which is subsumed under the term `chiefdom.` While this transformation has been well documented on a worldwide basis, archaeologists do not understand just what factors led to the emergence of high status chiefs, the extent to which social stratification extended across entire societies or the factors which allowed chiefs to maintain their power. Ujuxte covers a considerable time span within the Formative period and has yielded a large series of faunal remains. These result from the consumption of food and through the analysis of their spatial distribution across the site they provide insight into issues of social stratification. It is possible to determine whether the choicest cuts of meat from highly desirable species such as deer are spatially concentrated and associated with a small number of dwellings or whether they are more evenly distributed across the site. When viewed in a diachronic perspective, these data will provide insight into changes in the nature of status over time. This research is important because it addresses a central anthropological question. It will provide information of interest to many archaeologists and will increase understanding of the prehistory of Middle America.