The Prehistory of Chiapas, Mexico

中美洲的热带海岸遍布着红树林和河口，这些森林和河口虽然富含许多食物资源，但对农业生产几乎没有用处。因此，一旦中美洲人（阿兹特克、玛雅人和墨西哥和中美洲其他美洲原住民群体的先驱）完全致力于农业生存，可能是在中期形成时期（约公元前800 - 400年），人类居住地从沿海转移。沿海边缘继续被用于狩猎、捕鱼和贝类采集，但随着时间的推移，工业生产也越来越多。盐提取是一种有据可查的活动，最近的研究表明，大规模的陶瓷生产是另一种活动。迄今为止，对这些中美洲沿海工业遗址的系统调查很少。由于海平面上升和环境恶化可能会在未来几十年内破坏或破坏沿海遗址，因此开展此类研究具有一定的紧迫性。美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）提供了资金，支持一项为期三年的工作，记录中美洲海岸的一段考古遗迹。这段海岸位于墨西哥恰帕斯州（Chiapas）的太平洋南端，也就是索科努斯科（Soconusco）地区。这个NSF项目要解决的一个基本问题是，为Soconusco设定的繁荣和萧条周期是否是真实的，或者它们是否可能是现有年代框架粗糙的产物。通过大量投资于计时分析（放射性碳和发光测年），该项目将大大提高时间分辨率。如果一旦有了一个更好的时间框架，人口变化仍然是突然的和周期性的，那么开始评估崩溃、人口爆炸和长期遗弃的可能原因就变得明智了。与Jared Diamond在Collapse中讨论的情况不同，上面列出的所有“崩溃”和恢复的例子都发生在一个单一的地区，因此地理保持不变，人口变化的其他可能原因，如气候下降或改善，人口流动，当地政治事件，以及组织或技术创新，可以在没有地理变异性的混淆影响的情况下进行研究。史前的索科努斯科人不仅利用红树林区进行工业活动，留下了丰富的考古遗迹，而且该地区本身也是一个集水池，用于收集从河流和溪流中带来或从沿海平原吹来的植物部分和木炭。这意味着沿海平原农业区植被覆盖的变化记录在红树林区的沉积物中。因此，虽然红树林地区的考古遗迹记录了人们在远离内陆农业村庄的地方从事的工业活动，但沉积记录记录了上游的土地清理，这与沿海平原的人口水平有关。最近由NSF资助的考古和地质考古研究将对这些补充性的历史记录进行采样和分析。根据目前的考古学理解，该项目调查的目标记录是由史前和历史时期席卷索科努斯科的重大变化形成的：-该地区是前玛雅雕塑艺术的中心，但雕塑家在2000年前突然关闭了商店，大部分沿海平原似乎已经被遗弃。- 来自高地墨西哥帝国特奥蒂瓦坎的使者或军事家在公元400年左右抵达，显然开始了一段持续的人口增长时期，至少持续到了古典末期（~公元1000年）。- 在终端经典，陶工的河口区生产铅，最先进的技术和广泛的贸易陶器每一个在中美洲。- 人口似乎在公元1100年左右再次崩溃。史前晚期的人口复苏开始于公元1250年左右。- 在西班牙征服的时候（公元1521年），索科努斯科是阿兹特克帝国最遥远的省份，并向特诺奇蒂特兰（墨西哥城）的统治者致敬。征服后不久，人口再次暴跌，因为引入的欧洲疾病使人口大幅减少，直到世纪初才恢复。该项目将为洛杉矶地区几所加州州立大学的硕士生和博士生提供研究机会。华盛顿州立大学、纽约州立大学奥尔巴尼分校和加州大学洛杉矶分校的学生。

The tropical coasts of Mesoamerica are lined with mangrove forests and estuaries that, while rich in many food resources, are of little use for agricultural production. As a result, once Mesoamerican people (forerunners of the Aztec, Maya, and other Native American groups of Mexico and Central America) became fully committed to agricultural subsistence, probably during the Middle Formative period (~800 - 400 BC), human habitation shifted away from the coasts. The coastal margins continued to be utilized for hunting, fishing, and shellfish collecting, but increasingly over time as well for industrial production. Salt extraction is one well-documented activity, and recent research has indicated that large-scale ceramic production was another such activity. To date, there have been very few systematic investigations of these coastal Mesoamerican industrial sites. There is some urgency to initiate such studies because sea-level rise and environmental degradation threaten to submerge or destroy coastal sites over the coming few decades.The National Science Foundation has provided funds to support a three-year effort to document archaeological remains on one section of the Mesoamerican coast, the far-southern Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico, a region known as Soconusco. One fundamental issue that this NSF project will address is whether the boom and bust cycles posited for Soconusco are real or whether they may be artifacts of the coarseness of the existing chronological framework. By investing heavily in chronometric analysis (radiocarbon and luminescence dating) this project will dramatically improve chronological resolution. If demographic change still appears to be abrupt and cyclical once a better chronological framework is available, then it becomes sensible to begin evaluating possible causes of collapses, population explosions, and prolonged abandonments. Unlike the cases discussed by Jared Diamond in Collapse, all of the instances of 'collapse' and recovery listed above took place in a single region, so geography is held constant, and other possible causes of demographic change, such as climatic downturns or amelioration, population movements, local political events, and organizational or technological innovation, can be examined without the confounding effect of geographic variability. Not only did prehistoric Soconusco people use the mangrove zone for industrial activities, leaving an abundance of archaeological remains, the zone itself acts as a catch basin for plant parts and charcoal brought down rivers and streams or blown in from the coastal plain. This means that changes in vegetation cover in the coastal-plain agricultural zone are recorded in sediments of the mangrove zone. Thus, while mangrove-zone archaeological remains document industrial activities that people engaged in away from their inland agricultural villages, the sedimentary record documents upstream land clearance, which correlates with population levels on the coastal plain. The archaeological and geo-archaeological research recently funded by NSF will sample and analyze these complementary historical records. According to current archaeological understanding, the records targeted for investigation on this project were shaped by momentous changes that swept across Soconusco at various times during prehistory and history: - The region was a center of pre-Maya sculptural art, but the sculptors abruptly closed up shop around 2000 years ago, and much of the coastal plain seems to have been abandoned. - Emissaries or militarists from the highland Mexican empire of Teotihuacan arrived around AD 400, apparently initiating a period of sustained population growth that lasted at least through Terminal Classic period (~AD 1000). - During the Terminal Classic, potters of the estuary zone produced Plumbate, the most technologically sophisticated and widely traded pottery every made in Mesoamerica. - Population appears to have collapsed again around AD 1100.- Late Prehistoric population resurgence began around AD 1250. - At the time of the Spanish conquest (AD 1521), Soconusco was the most distant province of the Aztec empire and paid tribute to the rulers of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City).- Population again plummeted soon after the conquest, as introduced European diseases decimated the population, a collapse from which it did not recover until the early 20th century. The project will provide research opportunities for MA students at several California State Universities in the Los Angeles area and for Ph.D. students at Washington State University, SUNY-Albany, and UCLA.