Archaeological Survey of Late Postclassic Tlaxcala, Mexico

中美洲晚期后古典主义时期(约公元1200-1520年)在社会、文化和人口学方面发生了根本性的变革。世界体系内贵重商品的交易量增加，对贸易路线和原材料的竞争也是如此。墨西哥中部高地成为美索梅里察的主要经济和政治核心区，在这里，随着大型帝国声称控制着日益增长的经济体系，经济变革刺激了政治变革。随着阿兹特克三重联盟(阿兹特克帝国)巩固了对中央高地和其他地区的控制，帝国野心家之间的竞争终于解决了。墨西哥中部政体之间的战争是这一时期最血腥、最激烈的战争之一。虽然帝国最终能够统治，但只有一个政体，特拉斯卡拉，仍然没有被征服(这与后来的殖民史高度相关，因为科尔特·S如果不是与自由的特拉斯卡拉结盟，就不会击败阿兹特克人)。这个项目的目标是将民族史学和考古学数据结合起来，以更好地了解特拉斯哥人是如何成功地抵抗帝国合并的。到目前为止，该项目的研究发现，主要来自民族史料的是，在1300年后的时期，特拉斯卡利亚人精心打造了一个新的政治制度，尽管借鉴了纳瓦政治文化的一些传统，但在许多方面与它们背道而驰。最值得注意的是，特拉斯卡利亚人拒绝了纳瓦人统治的典型模式，转而支持以议会为基础的政府形式，允许政体人口中广泛的部分人发表意见。其次，建立了新的公职招聘模式，注重成就而不是高尚地位。这两项战略还旨在使不同族裔群体有效地融入管理机构和更广泛的社会。因此，这个政体吸引了大量作为政治异见者或为躲避政治动荡和战争而从帝国地区移民过来的人。特拉斯卡兰国家建设者的一项关键战略是建立一个新的首都中心，该中心位于一条高高的山脊线上，毗邻政治地理中心的低山。这一解决方案既象征着新的政体，又打造了一个与基于理事会的统治和军事防御相一致的解决系统。该项目之前的研究表明，为首都选择的地点之前没有被占领过，在它成立后，有一系列的建设将山脊线区域和其他城市区域塑造成适合新政治制度的环境。对文物的测绘和地面收集将确认首都基础和随后人口快速增长的年表，并将确认该项目先前工作的初步结果，即城市规划代表着与那华建筑和城市惯例的根本背离。城市规划的目标是创造一个开放和高度连接的聚落模式，其间穿插着可能用于仪式和市场交易的大型开放和高度可访问的广场特征。最后，对文物的测绘和表面收集将旨在更好地了解该中心的发展在多大程度上有经济和政治基础。

The Mesoamerican Late Postclassic Period (ca. CE 1200-1520) featured radical transformations in society, culture, and demography. World-system exchanges of valuable goods grew in volume as did competition for trade routes and raw materials. The Central Mexican Highlands emerged as Mesomerica's major economic and political core zone, and here economic change spurred political change as large empires asserted control over the growing economic system. A sorting-out period of competition between imperial aspirants was finally resolved as the Aztec Triple Alliance (Aztec Empire) consolidated control over the Central Highlands and beyond. Wars between Central Mexican polities were among the bloodiest and most closely-fought during this period. While the Empire was eventually able to dominate, one polity alone, Tlaxcala, remained unconquered (this is highly relevant to later colonial history, since Cortés would not have defeated the Aztecs except for the fact that he allied with free Tlaxcala). The goal of this project is to combine ethnohistoric and archaeological data to better understand how the Tlaxcalans successfully resisted imperial incorporation. What this project's research has discovered to date, mostly from ethnohistoric sources, is that during the post-1300 period the Tlaxcalans crafted a new political regime that, although borrowing from some conventions of Nahua political culture, in many ways radically departed from them. Most notably, the Tlaxcalans rejected the typical pattern of Nahua rulership in favor of a council-based form of government that allowed voice to a broad cross-section of the polity's population. Secondly, new modes of recruitment to official positions were instituted that favored achievement over noble status. Both of these strategies also aimed at the effective incorporation of diverse ethnic groups into the governing body and society more broadly. As a result, the polity attracted large numbers of persons who had emigrated from imperial areas as political dissidents or to escape political turmoil and war. A key strategy of the Tlaxcalan state-builders was the foundation of a new capital center, located on a high ridge-line and adjacent low hills near the polity's geographical center. This settlement both symbolized the new polity, and forged a settlement system consistent with council-based rule and military defense. Prior research by this project indicates that the location chosen for the capital had no prior occupation, and that following its founding there was a flurry of construction that shaped the ridge-line zone and other city zones into a suitable setting for the new political regime. Mapping and surface collection of artifacts will confirm the chronology of the capital's foundation and subsequent rapid population growth, and will confirm preliminary findings of this project's prior work suggesting that the city-planning represented a radical departure from Nahua architectural and urban conventions. The goal of city planning was to create an open and highly connected settlement pattern interspersed with large open and highly accessible plaza features that might have served for ritual and market transactions. Lastly, mapping and surface collection of artifacts will aim to better understand to what degree there was an economic, as well as political, basis for the center's growth.