Doctoral Dissertation Research: Land Use and Land Tenure in Prehispanic Tlaxcala

在Richard Lesure和Charles Frederick博士的指导下，Aleksander Borejsza将在墨西哥中部高地的特拉斯卡拉州为他的博士论文收集数据。他将对西班牙前的农业梯田进行考古发掘，并研究受过去土地使用影响的冲积沉积序列。这些数据将用于评估从第一个定居社区（约）出现以来土地利用、土地保有权和社会结构之间不断变化的关系。公元前850年）至殖民地早期（约公元前850年）。特拉斯卡拉的大多数山坡都是或已经被梯田耕种。耕地和废弃的田地散布着大片土地，那里的土壤已经被侵蚀殆尽。断断续续的溪流在深深的沟壑中流动，使灌溉成为可能。这种退化的景观是人类创造的，但其起源尚不清楚。在墨西哥的其他地区，土地退化被归咎于西班牙征服后的人口崩溃，以及犁和放牧动物的引入。在特拉斯卡拉，土著人两千年来的密集农业影响使这幅图景变得复杂起来。史前定居模式的变化表明，在这段时间里，不同的农业生态系统反复被创造、废弃和开垦，人类学家观察到，集约农业所需的投资将农民与土地联系在一起。离开一个土地得到改善的社区的成本增加，为新兴精英的社会剥削创造了机会。与此同时，通过建立农业生态系统来控制剥削的严重程度，这种生态系统需要有积极性和熟练的小农进行密集管理，而对精英来说，直接监督或更换小农的成本太高。为个人和世袭土地所有权的出现规定了条件。山坡的梯田化使这一过程更加具体化，因为它既是强化农业的手段，又是划分财产的手段。土地退化的发生会减少可用耕地的价值和数量，从而产生同样深远的社会后果，然而，在确定农业变化的确切区域顺序之前，无法知道过去是否存在这种关系。Borejsza将通过确定梯田系统的建造和废弃的年代并将其与土壤侵蚀和河流壕沟现象联系起来，在这方面迈出一步。将通过挖掘和实验室分析来评估梯田所采用的技术及其对产量的影响。梯田的年龄将通过测定梯田建造所掩埋的土壤中或挡土墙和填土中的有机物、木炭和人工制品的年代来确定。将对阶地下游的河谷进行调查，以确定冲积层暴露的切岸。在那里，沉积和土壤发展的循环将揭示斜坡侵蚀和稳定性的交替事件。这项研究将有助于讨论美洲景观的“原始”程度，以及其现代退化状况在多大程度上是引进在不同环境中开发的技术的影响，因此不适应当地条件。它还将探讨成功引进农业特别创新和继续维持人工农业生态系统所需的社会背景。

Under the direction of Drs. Richard Lesure and Charles Frederick, Aleksander Borejsza will collect data for his doctoral dissertation in the state of Tlaxcala, in the highlands of Central Mexico. He will conduct archaeological excavations of prehispanic agricultural terraces, and examine alluvial sedimentary sequences influenced by past land use. The data will be used to evaluate changing relationships between land use, land tenure and social structure, from the time of the first sedentary communities (ca. 850BC) to the early Colonial period (ca. AD1650).Most slopes in Tlaxcala are or have been terraced for cultivation. Cultivated and abandoned fields are interspersed with vast areas where the soil has been stripped away by erosion. Intermittent streams flow in deeply entrenched gullies, making irrigation impossible. This degraded landscape is a human creation, but its origin is unclear. In other parts of Mexico land degradation has been blamed on the population collapse that followed Spanish conquest, and the introduction of the plough and grazing animals. In Tlaxcala this picture is complicated by the effects of two millennia of intensive aboriginal agriculture. Changes in prehistoric settlement patterns suggest that different agro-ecosystems had repeatedly been created, abandoned and reclaimed in that time span.Anthropologists have observed that the investments required by intensive agriculture bind farmers to the land. The increased costs of leaving a community where land has been improved create opportunities for social exploitation by emerging elites. At the same time checks are imposed on the severity of exploitation, by creating agro-ecosystems that require intensive management by motivated and skilled smallholders, whose direct supervision or replacement is too costly for the elite. Conditions are set for the appearance of individual and hereditary claims to land. The terracing of slopes exemplifies this process, as the means of both intensifying agriculture and demarcating property. Episodes of land degradation can have equally far-reaching social consequences, by decreasing the value and amount of available farmland.Whether such relationships obtained in the past, however, cannot be known until firmly dated regional sequences of agricultural change are established. Borejsza will make a step in that direction by dating the construction and abandonment of terrace systems and relating them to the phenomena of soil erosion and stream entrenchment. The techniques employed in terracing and their influence on yields will be assessed through excavation and laboratory analysis. The age of terraces will be established by dating the organic matter, charcoal and artifacts in soils buried by terrace construction or included in the retaining walls and fill. River valleys downstream from terraces will be surveyed for cutbanks where alluvial deposits are exposed. There, cycles of sedimentation and soil development will reveal alternating episodes of slope erosion and stability.The research will contribute to the debate about how 'pristine' the landscape of the Americas was at contact, and to what extent its modern degraded condition is the effect of the introduction of technologies developed in different environments and therefore ill-adapted to local conditions. It will also explore the social context necessary for the successful introduction of particular innovations in agriculture and the continued maintenance of artificial agro-ecosystems.