Tres Zapotes Archaeological Project 2003

特雷斯萨波特斯考古项目 2003

• 批准号: 0242555
• 负责人: Christopher Pool
• 金额: $ 19.48万
• 依托单位: University of Kentucky Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-02-01 至 2005-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0242555&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Tres; Zapotes; Archaeological; Project; 2003

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Christopher A. Pool and his colleagues will conduct a two-year project of excavation and laboratory analysis at the archaeological site of Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, Mexico. With an archaeological record that spans the two millennia between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 1000, Tres Zapotes is the key site for understanding the emergence of Classic period civilization from ancient Olmec roots in Mexico's southern Gulf Coast lowlands. Olmec chiefdoms flourished from 1500 to 400 B.C., creating Mesoamerica's first great sculptural tradition and establishing social, political, and religious patterns found among such later civilizations as the Classic Maya. Such was the impressiveness of Olmec culture and the extent of its influence that some scholars regard it as Mesoamerica's "Mother Culture". Research at major sites in the eastern part of the Olmec heartland has long emphasized the collapse of this precocious culture around 400 B.C. Dr. Pool's previous research at Tres Zapotes paints a very different picture, however. Far from suffering a decline, this regional Olmec capital grew to cover 2 square miles (500 ha) between 400 B.C. and A.D. 300, becoming the largest center of the succeeding Epi-Olmec culture in the southern Gulf lowlands. Among the significant accomplishments of Epi-Olmec culture were the development of one of the earliest and most sophisticated writing systems in the Americas, the invention of the equally sophisticated Long Count calendar later employed by the Classic Maya, and the formalization of the political institution of kingship. Dr. Pool and his colleagues will investigate the political and economic processes that fostered these cultural developments. Specifically, the project tests a "confederation" model of Tres Zapotes political economy in which leaders of competing political factions united to rule the Tres Zapotes polity by emphasizing a corporate strategy of reciprocal obligations and communal ritual while monopolizing the ideological and economic sources of power within their respective factions. Excavations of Olmec and Epi-Olmec contexts in formal civic-ceremonial complexes and craft production areas will provide the data to test this model. Excavations in the formal complexes are designed to recover information on the degree to which they were contemporaneous, variation in their functions through time, differential access to valued resources, and the symbolic content of artifacts and public monuments. Excavations in craft production areas, including those attached to formal complexes and non-elite households, will assess variation in the organization and products of manufacture. This research is important because it will shed new light on a crucial but poorly understood period of ancient Mesoamerican history, and it will contribute to theory on the role of political economies in the evolution of complex society and the formation of states. Its broader impacts include the training of Mexican and North American students in field and analytical techniques, the fostering of international collaboration with Mexican professionals, and it will enhance the local infrastructure for future research.

在国家科学基金会的情况下，Christopher A. Pool博士和他的同事将在墨西哥Veracruz的Tres Zapotes考古遗址进行为期两年的发掘和实验室分析项目。 考古记录跨越了公元前1000年之间的两千年和A.D. 1000，Tres Zapotes是了解墨西哥南部墨西哥墨西哥湾沿岸低地的古代Olmec根源经典时期文明出现的关键场所。 Olmec的酋长国从1500年到公元前400年蓬勃发展，创造了中美洲的第一个伟大的雕塑传统，并建立了后来的经典文明中发现的社会，政治和宗教模式。 这就是Olmec文化的印象及其影响程度，有些学者将其视为中美洲的“母文化”。 Olmec Heartland东部主要地点的研究长期以来强调了这种早熟培养的崩溃。 但是，Poor博士先前在Tres Zapotes进行的研究描绘了一个截然不同的情况。 该地区的Olmec资本远没有下降，覆盖了公元前400年之间的2平方英里（500公顷）。和公元300年，成为南部海湾低地的Epi-Olmec文化中最大的中心。 Epi-Olmec文化的重大成就包括在美洲最早，最复杂的写作系统之一的发展，后来经典玛雅人使用的同样复杂的长期日历的发明以及国王政治机构的形式化。 Pool博士及其同事将调查促进这些文化发展的政治和经济进程。 具体而言，该项目测试了TRES的“同盟”模型，在该模型中，竞争政治派别的领导人通过强调企业义务和社区礼节的企业战略，同时垄断其各自的权力的意识形态和经济来源，以统治Tres Zapotes政治。 在正式的公民服务综合体和工艺生产区域中OLMEC和Epi-Olmec的发掘将提供数据以测试该模型。 正式建筑群的发掘旨在恢复有关它们同时发生的程度的信息，随着时间的流逝，其功能的变化，对有价值的资源的差异访问以及文物和公共古迹的象征内容。工艺生产区域的发掘，包括与正式综合体和非精英家庭相关的发掘区，将评估组织和制造产品的差异。 这项研究很重要，因为它将为古代中美洲历史的关键但知之甚少的时期提供新的启示，并将为政治经济在复杂社会发展和国家形成中的作用方面做出贡献。 它的更广泛的影响包括培训墨西哥和北美学生在现场和分析技术中的培训，与墨西哥专业人员的国际合作培养，它将增强本地基础设施以供未来的研究。