Historical Ecology of the Early Mekong Delta

早期湄公河三角洲的历史生态

• 批准号: 0242327
• 负责人: Miriam Stark
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Hawaii
• 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 2008-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0242327&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Historical; Ecology; Early; Mekong; Delta

Funding from the National Science Foundation will support Dr. Miriam Stark and her colleagues in their research on early state development in the Mekong delta (southern Cambodia). The project brings together Western and Cambodian specialists in archaeology, geoarchaeology, geography, and palynology to study how complex societies emerged, and their political and economic foundations in the first millennium A.D. During this transition to history, Southeast Asia's earliest states emerged in tandem with the appearance of Indic ideologies and the development of an international maritime trade network. Despite strong interest in comparative research on early state formation globally, few archaeologists have studied early complex societies in mainland Southeast Asia. Scholars of Cambodia's Angkorian civilization (c. A.D. 802-A.D. 1432) have long suggested that the origins of the Khmer empire lay in the Mekong delta. No systematic archaeological research has been undertaken previously, however, to document its origins and emergence. This project explores the changing organizational structure of complex polities in the Mekong delta between c. 500 B.C. and c. A.D. 500. Project members evaluate competing models of state formation, which differ both in causality and in structure. Assessing these models requires an understanding of changing settlement configuration through time, of ancient agricultural strategies, and of the potentially changing nature of water management systems. Dynamic relationships between geographical factors (variation in soils, availability of fresh water, and potential transportation routes) are investigated, as are the roles that ideology, politics and economics played in shaping the human and natural landscape of the first millennium A.D. The project's field methodology combines three seasons of archaeological and geoarchaeological research with concomitant analyses of remote sensing data. Project members will collect archaeological, art historical, geographical, paleoenvironmental, and epigraphic data to understand changes in settlement that were associated with the emergence of one of the region's earliest states. Construction of a geographic (GIS) database provides the foundation for field research. The GIS database also provides a tool for interpreting changing settlement patterns through time, and for studying evidence for changing farming strategies that may have included flood recession and irrigation-based rice agriculture. Field seasons combine four activities: (1) archaeological survey to document large sites and their environs; (2) thermoluminescence dating on collapsed brick monuments on these large sites to build a regional chronological sequence; (3) geoarchaeological research to identify and date ancient canal segments; and (4) paleoenvironmental research (primarily sediment coring) to reconstruct the region's changing climatic and vegetational regimes during the last 2500 years. This research is important in several respects. First, it provides new data for understanding the emergence of complex societies in an important and understudied region of the world. Second, the project merges interdisciplinary approaches to study political, environmental, and economic aspects of ancient state formation. Finally, the project combines research with training for Cambodian archaeology students. Nearly 25 years of civil war decimated the Cambodian archaeological community, and damaged its cultural resources. This project makes significant contributions to Cambodia's archaeological heritage, and also to training the next generation of Cambodian archaeologists.

来自国家科学基金会的资金将支持Miriam Stark博士和她的同事对湄公河三角洲（柬埔寨南部）早期国家发展的研究。该项目汇集了西方和柬埔寨考古学、地理考古学、地理学和孢粉学方面的专家，研究公元第一个千年复杂社会是如何出现的，以及它们的政治和经济基础。在向历史的过渡期间，东南亚最早的国家与印度意识形态的出现和国际海上贸易网络的发展同时出现。尽管对全球早期国家形成的比较研究有着浓厚的兴趣，但很少有考古学家研究东南亚大陆的早期复杂社会。研究柬埔寨吴哥文明的学者（约公元802年）。（公元1432年）一直认为高棉帝国起源于湄公河三角洲。然而，以前没有进行过系统的考古研究来记录它的起源和出现。本项目探讨了公元前500年至公元500年间湄公河三角洲复杂政治组织结构的变化。项目成员评估相互竞争的国家形成模型，这些模型在因果关系和结构上都有所不同。评估这些模型需要了解随着时间的推移而变化的聚落结构、古代农业战略以及水管理系统的潜在变化性质。研究了地理因素（土壤变化、淡水可用性和潜在运输路线）之间的动态关系，以及意识形态、政治和经济在塑造公元第一个千年的人文和自然景观中所起的作用。项目的实地方法结合了考古和地质考古研究的三个季节，以及遥感数据的附带分析。项目成员将收集考古、艺术历史、地理、古环境和铭文数据，以了解与该地区最早国家之一的出现有关的定居变化。地理信息系统数据库的建立为野外研究提供了基础。GIS数据库还提供了一种工具，用于解释随着时间的推移而变化的定居模式，以及研究可能包括洪水衰退和以灌溉为基础的水稻农业在内的农业战略变化的证据。野外季节包括四项活动：(1)考古调查，记录大型遗址及其周围环境；(2)用热释光法对这些大型遗址上倒塌的砖砌纪念碑进行定年，建立区域时间序列；(3)地质考古研究，确定古运河段的年代；(4)古环境研究（主要是沉积物取心），重建该地区近2500年来气候和植被的变化。这项研究在几个方面都很重要。首先，它为理解世界上一个重要而研究不足的地区复杂社会的出现提供了新的数据。其次，该项目融合了跨学科的方法来研究古代国家形成的政治、环境和经济方面。最后，该项目将研究与柬埔寨考古学生的培训结合起来。近25年的内战摧毁了柬埔寨的考古社区，并破坏了其文化资源。这个项目为柬埔寨的考古遗产做出了重大贡献，也为培养下一代柬埔寨考古学家做出了重大贡献。