Economic Organization of Prehistoric Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (850 - 1140 CE)

在国家科学基金会的支持下，亚当·沃森博士和一个跨学科的研究团队将完成一项为期三年的调查，调查的是今天新墨西哥州西北部查科峡谷地区祖先普韦布洛社会的社会和经济组织。该团队包括考古学和机械工程方面的专家，以探索工艺生产、制造技术和不同生产过程中使用的微观磨损痕迹文物之间的趋势之间的关系。在博尼托时期(公元850-1140)，查科峡谷及其周围许多分散的农业社区的合并和转变是前哥伦布时代北美出现政治复杂社会的最广泛引用的例子之一。社会分层的发展、查科思想的区域传播、大房子的建造和蓬勃发展的长途贸易网络是与博尼托阶段相关的主要变化。然而，尽管对峡谷进行了一个多世纪的考古研究，这些社会、政治和经济发展在多大程度上导致了社会经济组织的相应变化仍不清楚。尽管之前的研究表明，大量陶瓷和原材料从边远地区流入大峡谷，但直到最近，几乎没有迹象表明可能是当地生产并提供了什么作为交换。尽管在考古学上基本上看不见，但易腐烂的手工业，如篮子、纺织品和皮革加工，代表了查科经济的一个主要部分。这个项目通过对普韦布洛博尼托以前未分析的骨器收藏的研究，调查了工艺品生产的空间组织和规模的变化，普韦布洛博尼托是一个以其大小和多样性而闻名的集合体。工具制造和使用的总体趋势可以根据原材料的选择以及使用这些工具的篮子、纺织品和皮革制造的相对强度来评估。例如，使用扫描电子显微镜(SEM)研究骨骼人工制品，可以探索微磨损模式，然后可以用来区分正在制造的工艺品的类型。纹理分析技术的引入最初是为机械工程中的应用而开发的，允许识别使用磨损变化的可量化参数。在这些数据的基础上，这项研究将评估这样一种假设，即查科社会发展中明显的社会政治变化与以手工艺专业化形式增加的经济复杂性是平行的。这项研究的影响是深远的，并延伸到正在进行的地区辩论之外，有可能推进政治经济学、等级制度、手工艺专业化、史前骨骼工业和微型服装分析的研究。这项研究借鉴了表面计量学和机械工程领域的最新进展，应用新的科学方法来解决长期存在的考古问题。建立一个记录微小磨损变化的网络数据库是减少观察者之间的误差、提高重复性和解决使用磨损分析中的关键争论的关键步骤。通过美国自然历史博物馆科学研究指导计划和伍斯特理工学院，高中、本科生和研究生将参与数据收集和实验室分析。

With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Adam Watson and an interdisciplinary team of researchers will complete a three-year investigation of the social and economic organization of Ancestral Pueblo society in the Chaco Canyon region of present-day northwestern New Mexico. The team includes specialists in archaeology and mechanical engineering to explore the relationship between trends in craft production, manufacturing techniques, and microscopic wear-traces artifacts employed in different production processes.The coalescence and transformation of many dispersed farming communities in and around Chaco Canyon during the Bonito phase (850-1140 CE) is one of the most widely cited examples of the emergence of politically complex society in pre-Columbian North America. The development of social stratification, the regional propagation of Chacoan ideology, great house construction, and thriving long-distance trade networks are among the principal changes associated with the Bonito phase. Despite more than a century of archaeological research in the canyon, however, the extent to which these social, political, and economic developments entailed corresponding shifts in the economic organization of the society remains unclear. Although previous studies have shown that large quantities of ceramics and raw materials flowed into the canyon from outlying regions, until recently there was little indication of what may have been produced locally and provided in exchange. Though largely invisible archaeologically, perishable craft industries such as basketry, textiles, and hide-working represented a major sector of the Chacoan economy.This project investigates changes in the spatial organization and scale of craft production through the study of the previously unanalyzed collection of bone artifacts from Pueblo Bonito, an assemblage remarkable for both its size and diversity. Overall trends in tool manufacture and use can be assessed in terms of raw material choice and the relative intensity of basketry, textile, and hide manufacturing in which these tools were utilized. The study of bone artifacts using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), for example, permits the exploration of microwear patterns that can then be used to differentiate the types of crafts being manufactured. The introduction of texture analysis techniques originally developed for applications in mechanical engineering allows the identification of quantifiable parameters of variation in use-wear. On the basis of these data, the study will evaluate the hypothesis that the sociopolitical changes evident in Chacoan societal development was paralleled by increasing economic complexity in the form of craft specialization.The implications of this study are far-reaching and extend beyond the ongoing regional debates with the potential to advance studies of political economy, hierarchy, craft specialization, prehistoric bone industries, and microwear analysis. Drawing upon recent advances in the fields of surface metrology and mechanical engineering this research applies new scientific methods to address longstanding archaeological questions. The creation of a web-based database that documents variation in microwear is a critical step for reducing inter-observer error, improving repeatability, and resolving key debates in the analysis of use-wear. Through the American Museum of Natural History Science Research Mentoring Program and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, high school, undergraduate, and graduate students will participate in data collection and laboratory analysis.