Productive Intensification in an Urban Landscape: Survey, Excavation, and Palaeoenvironmental Analysis in the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Region

在国家科学基金会的支持下，凯瑟琳·莫里森博士和她的合作者将在位于印度南部的维查耶那加拉遗址进行考古研究。维贾耶那加拉城是一个帝国的首都，在公元14世纪到16世纪之间，这个帝国声称控制了印度半岛的大部分地区。它建立在一个从未成为政治中心或人口密集的地区，14世纪早期城市的迅速扩张促使农业和手工业产品的组织和生产规模发生了巨大变化。16世纪初，维查耶那加拉再次经历了军事征服、纪念性建筑建设和人口增长的扩张时期。这种情况为莫里森博士提供了一个极好的机会来研究经济变化的过程。在前五个季度的研究基础上，她的项目将研究城市周围地区的生产、定居、交通和防御工事的结构。三个独立的证据线，考古，历史和植物学将在这个地区的分析相结合。该小组将继续进行系统的密集地表调查。他们还将收集岩芯用于植物大化石和微化石分析。最后，以铭文为基础的历史研究将提供重要的经济和时间信息。考古学家希望了解复杂的社会如何管理经济，让大量的人用相对简单的生产技术来维持自己的生活。莫里森博士特别关注生产和消费的经济方面，并希望详细了解人类与环境的相互作用。她将研究农业、手工业生产和家庭活动随着时间的推移所产生的影响。岩心和选定的挖掘将产生木炭和植物遗骸，通过仔细分析，将提供对环境变化的见解。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的数据。它将增加我们对复杂社会如何发展和维持的理解，并将提供关于人与环境相互作用的丰富信息。

Morrison With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Kathleen Morrison and her collaborators will conduct archaeological research at the site of Vijayanagara, located in Southern India. The city of Vijayanagara was the capital of an empire that claimed control over much of peninsular India between the 14th and 16th centuries A.D. It was established in an area that had never been politically central or densely occupied and the rapid expansion of the city in the early years of the 14th century prompted dramatic changes in the organization and scale of production of agriculture and craft goods. In the early 16th century Vijayanagara again underwent a period of expansion in miliary conquest, construction of monumental architecture and also population. This situation provides Dr. Morrison with an excellent opportunity to investigate processes of economic change. Building on five previous seasons of research, her project will examine the structure of production, settlement, transportation and fortification in the region immediately surrounding the city. Three independent lines of evidence, archaeological, historical and botanical will be combined in the analysis of this region. The team will continue their program of systematic intensive surface survey. They will also collect cores for both plant macrofosil and microfossil analysis. Finally historical research based on inscriptions will provide important economic and chronological information. Archaeologists wish to understand how complex societies manage economies with allow large number of people to sustain themselves with relatively simple production techniques. In particular Dr. Morrison is focussing on economic aspects of production and consumption and wishes to understand in detail human environment interactions. She will examine the effect over time of agriculture, craft production and domestic activities. The cores and selected excavations will yield charcoal and plant remains which, through careful analy sis, will provide insight into environmental changes. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will increase our understanding of how complex societies develop and are maintained and will provide a wealth of information on human - environmental interactions.