Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Archaeology of Culture Contact in Northern Honduras

Kira Blaisdell-Sloan女士将在Rosemary Joyce博士的指导下为她的博士论文收集数据。布莱斯代尔-斯隆女士将继续在洪都拉斯乌卢亚河谷的兰乔艾尔斯遗址进行考古发掘。从后经典时期(公元1400年)到殖民地晚期(公元1800年)，牧场一直被占领。如此长的职业跨度对于洪都拉斯殖民时期的土著遗址来说是不寻常的。这样的长期占领使考古学家能够通过考古检查不同家庭在给定时间和给定家庭内多代人之间在建筑、饮食、贸易商品和当地生产商品方面的差异，来探索与殖民时期生活接触的变化性质。这个项目将使用“以代理人为中心”的方法来考察居住在牧场的个人和个人团体在他们的传统社会和经济网络被破坏并形成新的社会和经济网络时所采用的各种和变化的文化保留和身份创造策略。“以代理人为中心的方法”将把关键的重点放在人们(作为个人和团体)在与他们无法控制的殖民势力互动时所做出的战略选择上。兰乔·艾尔斯为使用这种方法提供了一个理想的情况。民族史学研究表明，乌卢亚河谷是中美洲最肥沃的河谷之一，在西班牙人到来之前，它在区域间经济上具有相当重要的地位。当西班牙人到达并试图统治该地区时，他们遭到了敌意，冲突接踵而至。这场抵抗的大本营是一个叫基塔梅的小镇。根据民族历史和考古研究，兰乔艾雷斯的考古遗址似乎就是纪录片中确定的基塔梅小镇。尽管他们最初拒绝西班牙人，并受到西班牙统治造成的破坏，但文献和初步考古证据表明，该定居点继续与西班牙人打交道。为了从以代理人为中心的角度解决基塔迈社区居民所经历的跨文化接触的动态性质，本项目将侧重于国内群体。虽然已经有明确的以代理人为中心的方法来处理文化接触和殖民主义，但这些方法还没有植根于家庭考古学。然而，作为考古学家，家庭是我们识别离散的合作群体的最好尺度。然后将这些联系到更大的视角，允许理解个人、群体、社区和文化之间的关系。这项研究的意义有三个方面。首先，它将提供数据来测试以代理人为中心的方法在家庭环境中接触和殖民的有效性。其次，它将对拉丁美洲未被记录在案的殖民环境提供具体的考古知识。除了简单的历史好奇之外，我们对土著人民和欧洲人之间早期接触的理解也很重要，因为它们塑造了这些接触发生的国家随后的许多发展。特别是在西班牙裔美国人，目前的种族关系、不平等制度、社会分层和许多身份问题都与最初的殖民背景有关。最后，作为博士项目，该项目还将帮助培养一位具有巨大潜力的青年科学家。

Ms. Kira Blaisdell-Sloan will collect data for her doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Rosemary Joyce. Ms. Blaisdell-Sloan will continue her archaeological excavations at the site of Rancho Ires, located in the Ulua River Valley, in Honduras. Rancho Ires was occupied continuously from the Postclassic (c. AD1400) to Late Colonial period (c. AD1800). This long occupational span is unusual for colonial period indigenous sites in Honduras. Such long term occupation allows archaeologists to explore the changing nature of contact to colonial period life through the archaeological examination of differences in architecture, diet, trade goods, and locally produced goods both between different households at a given time and within a given households over multiple generations. This project will use an "agent-centered" approach to examine the varied and changing strategies of cultural retention and identity creation employed by individuals and groups of individuals living at Rancho Ires as their traditional social and economic networks were disrupted and new ones formed.An "agent-centered approach" will place a critical focus upon the strategic choices that people (as individuals and groups) made as they interacted with colonial powers beyond their control. Rancho Ires provides an ideal situation to use such an approach. Ethnohistorical research indicates that the Ulua Valley, one of the most fertile river valleys in Central America, was of considerable inter-regional economic importance before the arrival of the Spanish. When the Spanish arrived and attempted to dominate the area, they were met with hostility, and conflict ensued. The seat of this resistance was a town called Quitamay. Based on ethnohistorical and archaeological research, the archaeological site of Rancho Ires appears to be the town identified in the documentary as Quitamay. Despite their initial rejection of the Spanish and the disruptions caused by Spanish domination, documentary and preliminary archaeological evidence indicates that the settlement continued to have dealings with the Spanish. To address the dynamic nature of the intercultural contact experienced by the residents of the community of Quitamay from an agent-centered perspective, this project will focus on the domestic group. Though there have been explicitly agent-centered approaches to culture contact and colonialism, as yet these have not been rooted in household archaeology. However, the household is the finest scale at which we, as archaeologists, can identify discrete cooperative groups. These then will be linked to larger perspectives, allowing for an understanding of the relationship between individuals, groups communities and cultures.The significance of this research is threefold. First, it will provide the data to test the efficacy of an agent-centered approach to contact and colonization in a household context. Second, it will contribute specific archaeological knowledge of under documented colonial settings in Latin America. Beyond being a matter of simple historical curiosity, our understanding of these early contacts between Aboriginal and European people is important because they shaped many subsequent developments in the countries in which they occurred. In Spanish America in particular, current race relations, systems of inequality, social stratification and many issues of identity relate back to the original colonial setting. Finally, as a doctoral project, this project will also aid in the training of a young scientist with great potential.