Doctoral Dissertation Research: Prehistoric Ceramic Traditions of the Southern Coastal Plain of North Carolina

在他的博士论文研究中，PI将为北卡罗来纳州沿海平原开发一个考古陶瓷序列。虽然发掘表明这一地区有很长的美洲原住民占领历史，并记录了早期的狩猎和采集以及后来的农业生活方式，但由于缺乏文化年表，研究一直受到严重阻碍。许多场地都包含在松散固结的砂质土壤中，这导致了材料的垂直运动。因此，详细的地层重建往往是困难的。由于这种土壤的化学成分，有机物质很少被保存下来，放射性碳测年也很少可能。PI希望通过构建详细的陶瓷年代学来纠正这种情况，该年代学通过热释光测年在时间上固定下来。这项技术测量了单个陶片内随时间变化的辐射损害，初步分析得出了内部一致的和考古上合理的结果。将研究一系列来自地层安全环境的碎片。将描述通过岩相学和成分分析确定的制造方法随时间的变化以及风格属性，并以热发光日期作为结果序列的锚定。一旦完成，来自地表和受干扰遗址的材料就可以被结合起来，PI然后可以绘制空间分布图，以描绘史前文化群体，并确定它们如何随着时间的推移而变化。北卡罗来纳州沿海平原具有考古价值，因为尽管当玉米种植出现时，那里的居民将玉米农业纳入了他们的狩猎和采集生活方式，但与大多数其他美洲原住民群体不同，他们显然没有采用固定的村庄生活方式，而是继续着高度流动的生活方式。对于许多对文化复杂性的发展和通常伴随而来的世俗化感兴趣的考古学家来说，该地区提供了一个重要的研究案例。然而，缺乏确定日期的序列严重限制了研究。国际刑事法院的工作应该有助于纠正这种情况。

For his doctoral dissertation research the PI will develop an archaeological ceramic sequence for the coastal plain of North Carolina. While excavations indicate that this region has a long history of Native American occupation and document both an earlier hunting and gathering and later agricultural way of life, research has been severely hindered by lack of a cultural chronology. Many sites are contained within loosely consolidated sandy soil which results in vertical movement in material. Thus detailed stratigraphic reconstruction is often difficult. Because of the chemical composition of such soils, organic material is rarely preserved and radiocarbon dating is rarely possible. The PI wishes to remedy this situation through the construction of a detailed ceramic chronology which is anchored in time by thermolumenescence dating. This technique measures time dependent radiation damage within individual potsherds and preliminary analysis has produced internally consistent and archaeologically reasonable results. A series of sherds from stratigraphically secure contexts will be studied. Changes through time in method of manufacture, as determined through petrographic and compositonal analysis, as well as stylistic attributes will be described and the resultant sequence will be anchored with thermolumenescence dates. Once this is accomplished, materials from surface and disturbed sites can be incorporated and the PI can then plot spatial distributions to delineate prehistoric cultural groupings and determine how they changed over time. The coastal North Carolina plain is of archaeological interest because although its inhabitants incorporated maize agriculture into their hunting and gathering way of life when this cultigen became available, in contrast to most other Native American groups they apparantly did not adopt a settled village way of life but continued a highly mobile lifestyle. For the many archaeologist interested in the development of cultural complexity and the sedentization which usually accompanies this, the region provides an important study case. However lack of a securely dated sequence severely limits research. The PI's work should help to remedy this situation