Under the direction of Dr. Robert Drennan, Mr. Gerardo Jimenez Delgado will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. A central question in archaeology concerns the processes which led to the transformation of small scale egalitarian societies into large, complex socially stratified entities. This pattern of change occurred prehistorically, and seemingly independently, in many parts of both Old and New Worlds and this fact suggests an underlying dynamic rather than historical accident as cause. Many possible factors such as managerial control over scarce resources - agricultural land, irrigation water, clay or other mineral deposits - may, it has been suggested, play important roles. Some anthropologists have postulated that control over labor rather than natural resources per se facilitated the emergence of social complexity. Working in a ca. 500 sq. km. region on Mexico's Gulf Coast Mr. Delgado will examine this question. The Olmec was the first of Middle American's early civilizations and monumental architecture, including multi-ton stone heads fashioned from basalt testify to the Olmec's ability to mobilize a substantial labor force. Variation in residence and in the materials they contain also point to a hierarchically organized society. Mr. Delgado will focus on the Early Formative stage in Olmec development. Working in an area with variable agricultural land of different degrees of productivity and point sources of potting clay and high quality basalt, he will determine the relationship between the distribution of population and natural resources. To accomplish this he will use GIS analysis of areal photographs as well as ground survey to map the patterning of soils and reconstruct the paleo landscape. He and his colleagues will then conduct a carefully designed surface survey with limited shovel testing to locate archaeological sites and to date them. He has developed a series of scenarios which relate developing complexity to differing causes and which predict how population would map onto resources in each case.
This research is important for several reasons. It will address a basic question of high anthropological significance. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and assist in training a promising young scientist.
