Decentralized Societies and the Development of Secondary States

在国家科学基金会的支持下，蒂娜·瑟斯顿博士将在丹麦的Thy地区进行三个季节的实地考察，在那里她研究了铁器时代，在此期间，一个国家级社会首次出现。大多数考古研究集中在“初级”国家，这些国家从政治不太复杂的社会自发发展而来。瑟斯顿博士感兴趣的是一个不同的过程：从接触和对已有状态的反应中发展出来的状态。它们被称为“次级”国家，通常是由政治领导人聚集在一起创建一个单一实体的几个预先存在的群体产生的。尽管这一过程更为普遍，但我们对其知之甚少，而且在历史时期，当帝国和“超级大国”与周边群体互动，产生社会、经济和政治转变时，我们可以观察到类似的情况。通过对这些个案的比较，我们可以深入了解新兴政治复杂性背后的社会过程。早期的丹麦国家也不寻常，因为它的“公司”性质，在这种情况下，一种原始的民主受到青睐，领导者和追随者之间的极端分化被压制，而劳动、粮食生产、社会团体甚至统治都是通过广泛的综合仪式和意识形态手段来控制的。丹麦的公团性质意味着宫殿、纪念碑、寺庙和其他政治权力的标志无法用于研究国家发展。因此，在美国国家科学基金会之前的支持下，瑟斯顿博士开发了一种方法来重建这种不同组织的国家的组织，这种方法不依赖于检查一个地点，而是依赖于确定地区的趋势和过程，以了解谁控制了重要的制度结构：市场经济、中心地区的网络、农业生产、军事指挥和宗教实践。在国家建设过程中，这些地方的控制权最终将从地方的、建国前的领导人转移到中央统治者手中。这种情况是如何发生的——和平还是暴力，快速还是缓慢，例如——让我们了解到中央统治者的策略，以及他们从被纳入新政体的人那里得到的合作或抵抗程度。为此，瑟斯顿博士一直在研究一个次区域，该次区域在国家建设时期经历了典型的变化，体现了在更大的国家中看到的过程。在NSF支持的前四个季节的田野调查中，利用土壤磷酸盐测试和相关的地表人工制品分布（人类居住的指标）确定了250多个地点的全覆盖调查，并在36个地点进行了106次测试挖掘，重建了聚落形式，确定了村庄社会组织和经济活动，以及它们如何随时间变化。根据在军事征地、经济中心、精英建筑群和村庄收集的数据，以及不寻常的农业扩张和强迫移民的证据，表明了制度控制方面的一些显着变化，伴随着对国家对地方事务日益增长的统治的暴力反对。瑟斯顿博士现在将挖掘几个地点，以回答国家何时、如何以及在何种情况下对地方系统进行干预的问题。与此同时，她将继续培养本科生和研究生，并希望加强对现代社会的论述，在这个时代，国家的建立/破坏和人口的被迫重新安置已经成为一种常见现象。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Tina Thurston will conduct three seasons of fieldwork in the Thy region of Denmark, where she studies the Iron Age period during which a state level society first emerged. Most archaeological studies focus on 'Primary' states, which develop spontaneously from less politically complex societies. Dr. Thurston is interested in a different process: states that develop from contact with and response to already existing states. Called 'Secondary' states, they usually arise from several pre-existing groups brought together by political leaders to create a single entity. Much less is known about this process, although it is more common, and parallels can be observed in historic times as empires and 'super-powers' interact with peripheral groups, spawning social, economic and political shifts. Through comparison of such individual cases, insight is gained into the social processes underlying emergent political complexity. The early Danish state is also unusual because of its 'corporate' nature, in which a type of primitive democracy was favored, and extreme differentiation between leaders and followers was suppressed while labor, food production, social groups and even rulership were controlled through broad integrative ritual and ideological means. Denmark's corporate nature means that palaces, monuments, temples and other markers of political power are unavailable for use in studying state development. Thus, with prior NSF support, Dr. Thurston developed a methodology for reconstructing the organization of such differently-organized states, which relies not on examining one site, but on determining trends and processes in regions to understand who controlled important institutional structures: market economy, networks of central places, agrarian production, military command, and religious practice. During state-building, control of these will ultimately shift from local, pre-state leaders to central rulers. How this occurs -- peacefully or violently, quickly or slowly, for example -- gives insight into central rulers' strategies and the level of cooperation or resistance they receive from those incorporated into a new polity. To this end, Dr. Thurston has been studying a sub-region that during the state-building era underwent changes typifying processes seen in the greater nation. During four previous seasons of NSF supported fieldwork, full coverage survey identified over 250 sites using soil phosphate testing and associated surface artifact distribution (indicators of human occupation), and 106 test excavations were conducted at 36 locales to date and reconstruct forms of settlement, determine village social organization and economic activity, and how this changed over time. Based on data collected at a military levy site, economic centers, elite compounds, and villages with evidence of unusual agrarian expansion and forced migration, a number of marked changes in institutional control are indicated, accompanied by violent opposition to growing state dominion over local affairs. Dr. Thurston will now excavate several sites to answer the questions of when, how, and under what circumstances state intervention in local systems occurred. At the same time, she will continue to train both undergraduate and graduate students, and hopes to enhance discourse on the modern era, where the making/breaking of states and the forced resettlement of populations has become a common occurrence.