Water, Politics, and the Built Environment: Human Eco-dynamics and the Origin of the Tarascan State, Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico

21世纪最大的挑战之一将是为相互关联的社会和环境变化创造解决方案。考古学通过帮助解释社会生态系统在长时间尺度上的演化轨迹，独特地准备对这场辩论做出重大贡献。在国家科学基金会的支持下，海伦·波拉德博士和一个国际同事团队将在墨西哥中西部进行为期两个季节的多学科研究，以探索气候波动、景观变化和史前塔拉斯坎(普雷佩查)帝国形成之间的关系。在欧洲人接触的时候，Pátzcuaro湖盆地(LPB)是塔拉斯坎帝国的地缘政治核心，长期以来一直被认为是中美洲的核心地区。在欧洲被征服之前，LPB拥有大量的人口、集中的定居点系统、社会分层和高度工程化的环境。目前对塔拉斯干州发展(约公元1350年)的解释突出了一场“完美风暴”，社会复杂性和竞争日益加剧，气候导致的湖泊入侵，以及该地区农业潜力的相关变化，但这些变量之间的时间、现存和相互关系尚不清楚。对深入理解人类生态动力学和塔拉斯卡纳州至关重要的三个相互关联的命题指导着该项目。首先，塔拉斯坎国家成立前后是否存在整个盆地的湖侵？其次，该区域的社会政治组织的性质是什么？最后，后古典主义景观的状况如何？这些变化的时间、范围和联系尚不清楚，为了利用最近的研究，扩大范围模型的实用性，并推动该地区的考古学向前发展，需要进行新的研究。这项研究将启动一项由来自美国和墨西哥的考古学家、地质学家和地理学家进行的多学科研究的创新计划，包括全面覆盖LPB重要部分的聚落模式调查、景观调查和环境挖掘，以扩大现有模型的实用性，并更好地了解晚期后经典(公元1350-1520)塔拉斯坎国家/帝国的发展。这项研究将直接有助于解释古老的塔拉斯坎国家的发展及其扩展为一个帝国，墨西哥中部史前，并作为一个重要的人类学例子长期耦合的人/自然系统。最重要的是，这项工作将更充分地探索这三个关键因素之间的时间、范围和关联，以构建整个LPB和整个区域的更好的模型和类比。归根结底，这些知识可以通过将结果与当地和全球气候指数、土地退化模型以及将当地生态知识应用于现代问题的可行性相关联，来帮助当地的保护工作。来自墨西哥、美国和欧洲的学生将参与这项研究，以进行他们的硕士和博士研究。

One of the great challenges for the 21st century will be creating solutions to linked social and environmental change. Archaeology is uniquely poised to make a significant contribution to this debate by helping to explain trajectories of socio-ecosystem evolution over long time scales. With National Science Foundation support Dr. Christopher Fisher, Dr. Helen Pollard, and an international team of colleagues will conduct two seasons of multi-disciplinary research in West Central Mexico to explore relationships between climatic fluctuation, landscape change, and the formation of the Prehistoric Tarascan (Purépecha) Empire. At the time of European contact the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (LPB) was the geopolitical core of the Tarascan Empire and has long been recognized as a Mesoamerican core region. Prior to European conquest the LPB contained a large population, centralized settlement system, social stratification, and a highly engineered environment.Current explanations for Tarascan state development (~A.D. 1350) highlight a "perfect storm" of increasing social complexity and competition, climatically induced lake transgression, and associated changes in the agrarian potential of the region, but the timing, extant, and interrelationships between these variables remains unclear. Three interrelated propositions critical to a refined understanding of human ecodynamics and the Tarascan State guide the project. First, was there a Basin-wide lake transgression around the time of Tarascan State formation? Next, what was the nature of socio-political organization in the region? Finally, what was the condition of the Postclassic landscape? The timing, extent, and associations between these changes remains unknown and to capitalize on recent research, extend the utility of extent models, and move archaeology in the region forward new research is needed. This study will initiate an innovative program of multidisciplinary research by archaeologists, geologists, and geographers from the United States and Mexico, including full coverage settlement pattern survey, landscape survey, and environmental excavation within an important portion of the LPB, to expand the utility of current models and better understand the development of the Late Postclassic (A.D. 1350-1520) Tarascan State/Empire. This research will make a direct contribution to explanations for the development of the archaic Tarascan state and its expansion into an empire, Central Mexican prehistory, and serve as an important anthropological example of coupled human/natural systems over long time frames. Most importantly this work will more fully explore the timing, extent, and associations between these three critical factors to construct better models and analogs for the LPB as a whole, and for the region in general. Ultimately this knowledge can aid local conservation efforts by correlating results with local and global climatic indices, models of land degradation, and the feasibility of applying local ecological knowledge to modern problems. Students from Mexico, the United States, and Europe will participate in this research for their MA and Ph.D. research.