Dendroarchaeology and Early Dinetah Navajo Social Organization

在国家科学基金会的支持下，罗纳德·汤纳博士、学生和志愿者将对新墨西哥州西北部纳瓦霍人的故乡迪内塔的一大批原始早期纳瓦霍考古遗址进行为期两个季节的树轮考古采样、分析和解释。该项目将：(1)从戈伯纳多时期(公元1650-1775年)纳瓦霍遗址收集的树木年轮样本数量增加一倍以上，同时绝对日期也随之增加；(2)描绘已知高密度18世纪纳瓦霍人占领的三个地区的时间和空间方面，并将它们与之前三个项目的现有数据进行比较；(3)综合Dinetah的所有树木年轮纳瓦霍人遗址；(4)比较和对比早期纳瓦霍人聚落模式与现有的基于树木年轮的气候重建；以及(5)在家庭、居民组、社会组织中建立早期纳瓦霍人人口和社会组织的新模型中层，社区，可能还有部落层面。由此产生的数据和解释将极大地帮助考古学家、人类学家、历史学家和地理学家了解早期纳瓦霍社会群体对迪内塔的占领，早期历史时期西南北部更广泛的人口动态，以及人类行为变异性、气候变异性和社会政治变化之间的关系。几十年来，纳瓦霍人的社会组织一直是广泛而深入的人类学研究的主题，但这类研究的绝大多数集中在朱斯卡山脉以西的保留地时代(1868年后)群体。Dinetah的早期纳瓦霍考古提供了一个机会来检查保留前纳瓦霍群体的社会组织，这些群体并不致力于牧业，而是在严重的气候和社会压力时期实行非常混合的经济。这个项目将使用树木年轮、考古、人类学、历史和现存的口述历史数据来阐明在采用田园生活方式之前戈伯纳多阶段纳瓦霍人定居点的各个方面，并将显著增强我们对纳瓦霍人向牧业转变之前早期纳瓦霍人社会组织的了解。该项目将在理解早期纳瓦霍人的文化动态和社会组织方面取得重大进展；它将阐明早期纳瓦霍人人口的重要方面，并加强中层社会组织的人类学理论。该项目将产生重大影响，超出第纳瓦霍和考古学的范畴。它将对理解各种形式的社会组织如何以及在什么条件下在前工业化、边疆接触的社会中发展做出重要贡献。这种社会形成过程的模型将有助于更广泛地理解人口、气候和社会政治压力时期的人类社会组织。该项目还将为学生的培训和发展做出贡献。它还可能有助于校准其他计时技术，如考古磁学和热释光测年，以及完善史前和早期历史陶器类型的陶瓷系列化研究。它将完善纳瓦霍木材的使用模式，这些模式可能会对理解技术变革对森林资源开发的影响产生影响。

With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Ronald Towner, students, and volunteers, will conduct two seasons of archaeological tree-ring sampling, analysis, and interpretation of a large set of pristine Early Navajo archaeological sites in the Navajo homeland of Dinetah in northwestern New Mexico. This project will: (1) more than double the number of tree-ring samples collected from Gobernador Phase (AD 1650-1775) Navajo sites with a concomitant increase in the number of absolute dates, (2) delineate the temporal and spatial aspects of three areas of known high-density 18th century Navajo occupation and compare them to existing data from three previous projects, (3) synthesize all tree-ring dated Navajo sites in Dinetah, (4) compare and contrast Early Navajo settlement patterns with extant tree-ring based reconstructions of climate, and (5) build new models of Early Navajo demography and social organization at the household, residence group, mid-level, community, and possibly tribal level. The resulting data and interpretations will significantly aid archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and geographers in understanding the occupation of Dinetah by Early Navajo social groups, the broader population dynamics of the early historical period in the northern Southwest, and the relationships between human behavioral variability, climate variability, and sociopolitical change. Navajo social organization has been the subject of extensive and intensive anthropological research for decades, but the vast majority of such research has concentrated on Reservation-era (post-1868) groups west of the Chuska Mountains. Early Navajo archaeology in Dinetah provides an opportunity to examine the social organization of pre-Reservation Navajo groups who were not committed to pastoralism, but instead practiced a very mixed economy during times of severe climatic and social stress. This project will use tree-ring, archaeological, anthropological, historical, and extant oral history data to illuminate aspects of Gobernador phase Navajo settlement prior to the adoption of a pastoral lifeway and will significantly enhance our understanding of Early Navajo social organization prior to the Navajo transformation to pastoralism. The project will result in significant advances in understanding Early Navajo cultural dynamics and social organization; it will illuminate important aspects of Early Navajo demography, and enhance anthropological theories of mid-level social organization. This project will have significant impacts beyond the Dinetah Navajo and archaeology. It will make important contributions toward understanding how and under what conditions various forms of social organization developed in a pre-industrial, frontier-contact society. Models of such social formation processes will contribute to a broader understanding of human social organization during periods of demographic, climatic, and sociopolitical stress. The project will also contribute toward student training and development. It may also contribute to calibration other chronometric techniques, such as archaeomagnetism and thermoluminescence dating, and to refining ceramic seriation studies of protohistoric and early historic pottery types. It will refine models of Navajo wood use that may have implications for understanding the impacts of technological change on the exploitation of forest resources.