Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Ceramic Production and Distribution in the U.S. Southwest

在Patricia Crown博士的指导下，Valerie King女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将分析一种特殊类型的陶器，Chuskan灰器，这种陶器大量存在于位于新墨西哥州的查科峡谷史前遗址。由于其开发规模，该峡谷在美国西南部是独一无二的。从公元900年代开始，到1000年代末达到顶峰，峡谷内的一些遗址的特点是存在纪念性建筑，存在从远距离获得的稀有异国物品，以及似乎是广泛的修建道路网络。在边远社区，一系列的“大房子”展示了查科建筑技术的特点，从而暗示着一个地域广泛的文化系统的存在。从20世纪初到现在，查科峡谷的发展、荧光和衰落的本质一直是激烈的研究和考古学辩论的焦点。研究人员不确定社会复杂性达到的水平，也不能就其影响的地理范围达成一致。一些考古学家认为，查科是一个广泛的再分配系统的中心，另一些人认为，它的功能主要是礼仪性的，还有一些人认为，它实际上是一个农业生产中心。一些人认为，一年中的大部分时间里，它的入住率都很低，人们聚集在那里只是为了特殊的活动。金女士将通过陶器分析来阐述该网站的功能。她希望确定在边远地区生产的楚斯坎灰陶是否是在严格集中控制下生产的。如果是这样的话，这将表明查科实际上对一大片区域实行了相当大的政治和经济控制，并处于一个高度分层的中央集权制度的核心。基于人种学和考古学的类比，这种专业生产和分层的社会组织之间存在着很强的相关性。为了实现她的目标，金女士将检查一大系列灰瓷陶瓷，并确定在形式、装饰和制造方法方面的标准化程度。除了记录宏观性质外，她还将进行岩相学和微量元素分析。从不同时间点采集的样本将提供必要的比较基础，以评估随时间变化的复杂性。这项工作之所以重要，有几个原因。它将提供许多考古学家感兴趣的数据。它将为了解美国重要的史前文化提供新的线索，并有助于培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the Direction of Dr. Patricia Crown, MS Valerie King will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will analyze a specific type of pottery, Chuskan greyware which is present in large numbers at the prehistoric site of Chaco Canyon located in New Mexico. The canyon is unique in the US Southwest because of its scale of development. Beginning in the 900s AD and reaching an apex in the late 1000s a few sites within the canyon were characterized by the presence of monumental architecture, the presence of rare exotic items which were obtained from long distances and what appear to be an extensive network of constructed roads. In outlying communities a series of "great houses" exhibit the characteristics of Chacoan construction techniques, thus implying the existence of an areally extensive cultural system. The nature of Chaco Canyon's development, fluorescence and decline has been the focus of intense research and archaeological debate from the early 1900s to the present day. Researchers are uncertain of the level of societal complexity attained and can not agree on the geographic extent of its influence. Some archaeologists argue that Chaco served a center for a broad redistribution system, others that its function was largely ceremonial and yet others that it was in fact a center of agricultural production. Some believe that it was minimally occupied for most of the year and that people aggregated there only for special events. MS King will address the site's function through pottery analysis. She wishes to determine whether Chuskan greyware pottery which was produced in an outlying region was manufactured under tight centralized control. If such were the case this would suggest that Chaco in fact exercised considerable political and economic control over a large region and lay at the core of a centralized highly stratified system. Based on ethnographic and archaeological analogies, a strong correlation exists between such specialist production and stratified social organization. To accomplish her goal MS King will examine a large series of greyware ceramics and determine the extent of standardization in form, decoration and method of manufacture. In addition to recording macroscopic properties she will conduct both petrographic and trace element analysis. Samples drawn from different chronological points will provide the comparative basis necessary to assess changing complexity over time. This work is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will shed new light into an important prehistoric US culture and assist in training a promising young scientist.