Collaborative Research: Community Organization in the Casas Grandes Core Zone

卡萨斯格兰德斯位于墨西哥奇瓦瓦州西北部，是最大、最精致的史前普韦布洛社区之一。它包含了独特的普韦布洛风格的住房和仪式建筑的组合，包括来自中美洲的球场和平台土墩。在中世纪（约公元1200-1450年）的鼎盛时期，大卡萨斯是该地区的灵长类动物中心，也是美国西南部和中美洲广泛互动的焦点。在卡萨斯格兰德斯的挖掘提供了一个很好的社区的图片，但从来没有太多的研究邻近的社区。因此，关于“大之家”政体的规模、结构、集权程度和组织方式的大部分细节仍然模糊不清。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Michael E. Whalen博士和Paul E. Minnis博士正试图通过对Casas Grandes的邻居进行长期研究来纠正这种情况。在本项目中，将在315场地进行两个季节的挖掘和一个季节的回收材料分析。场地距离Casas Grandes约2公里，位于核心区域内。早期的研究表明，这是灵长类动物中枢周围最大的互动和整合区域。关于315站点，有两点需要澄清。首先是社区的职业历史。另一种说法是，随着Casas Grandes达到顶峰，较大的核心区社区减少了。另一种说法是，大的、靠近的定居点与灵长类动物中心的最高点是同时代的。这两种情况需要非常不同的组织模型。这就引出了第二个问题：315站点维持了什么程度的社区复杂性？作者之前在该地区的工作提供了一种经过良好测试的策略，该策略使用考古数据来监测不同时期的社区复杂性水平。所有这些问题都与灵长类中心如何以及在多大程度上组织其核心区最近的邻居有关。这一未被充分理解的问题是区域系统结构的所有其他部分复杂性水平的限制条件。该项目不仅在区域背景下具有重要意义，而且在一般理论方面也具有重要意义。人们普遍认为，卡萨斯·格兰德斯是中美洲北部发展起来的少数几个复杂社会之一。然而，它的兴起、组织方式和衰落仍然是如此不完全理解，以至于它在社会政治进化过程的讨论中几乎没有任何作用。该项目有几个公共影响。首先，促进了学生考古实地和实验室研究方法的训练，并为学生提供了继续进行论文和学位论文研究课题的机会。这些机会不仅提供给墨西哥学生，也提供给来自北美的学生。其次，该项目和其他类似项目通过增加北美和墨西哥考古学家之间的联系和互动，以及通过提高墨西哥这一地区公民对国家遗产的知名度，大大加强了墨西哥西北部研究的基础设施。

Casas Grandes, located in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, is one of the largest and most elaborate of prehistoric pueblo communities. It contains a unique combination of pueblo-style housing and ceremonial architecture, including ball courts and platform mounds, from Mesoamerica. During its peak in the Medio period (ca. A.D. 1200-1450), Casas Grandes was the primate center of its region and a focal point of the extensive interaction between the U.S. Southwest and Mesoamerica. Excavations at Casas Grandes provide a good picture of the community, but there never has been much study of neighboring communities. Accordingly, most details of the size, structure, level of centralization, and mode of organization of the Casas Grandes polity remained obscure.With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Michael E. Whalen and Paul E. Minnis are attempting to remedy this situation by their long-term study of the neighbors of Casas Grandes. In the present project, two seasons of excavation and one of analysis of the recovered materials will be carried out at site 315. The site lies about 2 km from Casas Grandes, within what is defined as the Core Zone. Earlier studies indicate that this was the zone of maximum interaction and integration around the primate center. There are two things that need to be clarified about site 315. The first is the occupational history of the community. One alternative is that the larger Core Zone communities diminished as Casas Grandes rose to its peak. The other is that large, near settlements were contemporary with the apogee of the primate center. These two scenarios require very different organizational models. This leads to the second question: what level of community complexity did site 315 maintain? The authors' previous work in the region provides a well-tested strategy that uses archaeological data to monitor levels of community complexity across time. All of these questions bear on the question of how and to what extent the primate center organized its nearest neighbors of the Core Zone. This poorly understood issue is a limiting condition on the level of complexity of all the rest of the regional system's structure.The project is significant not only in a regional context, but in terms of general theory. Casas Grandes is widely agreed to have been one of the few complex societies to develop north of Mesoamerica. However, its rise, mode of organization, and decline still are so incompletely understood that it plays almost no role in discussions of sociopolitical evolutionary processes.The project has several public impacts. First, it promotes training of students in archaeological field and laboratory research methods, and it provides continued opportunities for students to pursue research topics for theses and dissertations. These opportunities are extended to Mexican students as well as to those from North America. Second, the project and others like it significantly enhance the infrastructure for research in northwest Mexico by increasing contact and interaction between North American and Mexican archaeologists and by raising the visibility of the national patrimony for the citizens of this part of Mexico.