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地区进行为期三个季度的田野调查，在那里她研究铁器时代，在此期间，国家一级的社会最早出现。大多数考古学研究都集中在“初级”状态，这些状态是从政治上不那么复杂的社会自发发展而来的。瑟斯顿博士感兴趣的是一个不同的过程：通过与已经存在的州的接触和回应而发展起来的州。它们被称为“次要”国家，通常由政治领导人聚集在一起的几个预先存在的团体组成一个单一实体。人们对这一过程的了解要少得多，尽管它更常见，而且在历史时期可以观察到类似的情况，因为帝国和超级大国与外围群体互动，催生了社会、经济和政治变化。通过对这些个案的比较，可以洞察到隐藏在新兴政治复杂性背后的社会过程。丹麦早期国家的不同寻常之处还在于它的企业性质，支持一种原始的民主制度，抑制领袖和追随者之间的极端分化，而通过广泛的综合仪式和意识形态手段控制劳动力、食品生产、社会团体甚至统治权。丹麦的企业性质意味着宫殿、纪念碑、寺庙和其他政治权力的标志不能用于研究国家发展。因此，在NSF之前的支持下，瑟斯顿博士开发了一种方法来重建这些不同组织的州的组织，这不是依赖于考察一个地点，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，这些权力的控制权最终将从地方政府成立前的领导人手中转移到中央尺子手中。这种情况是如何发生的--例如，是以和平还是暴力的方式，是快是慢--让我们得以洞察中央尺子的战略，以及它们从纳入新政体的国家那里得到的合作或抵制程度。为此，瑟斯顿博士一直在研究一个次区域，该区域在建国时期经历了在更大国家中所见的典型变化。在NSF支持的田野工作的前四个季节中，利用土壤磷酸盐测试和相关的地表人工制品分布(人类占领的指标)，全面覆盖调查确定了250多个地点，并在36个地点进行了106次试掘，以确定迄今为止和重建的定居点形式，确定村庄的社会组织和经济活动，以及这种情况如何随着时间的推移而变化。根据在一个军事征兵点、经济中心、精英大院和有异常农业扩张和强迫移民证据的村庄收集的数据，我们指出了制度控制方面的一些显著变化，同时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遗址，以回答国家何时、如何以及在什么情况下对当地系统进行干预的问题。与此同时，她将继续培训本科生和研究生，并希望加强对现代的论述，在这个时代，国家的建立/破坏和人口的被迫重新安置已经司空见惯。

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.