Craft Specialization and the Emergence of Political Complexity in Southwest Florida

在珍妮·阿诺德博士的监督下，约翰·迪特勒将调查佛罗里达西南部卡卢萨哈奇地区政治复杂性的出现。 这个地区是强大的非农业卡卢萨酋长国在十六世纪AD，并指出了一个独特的海洋贝壳为基础的技术，首次出现在4000多年前。 在整个佛罗里达南部，贝壳斧和斧头被用来制作各种各样的木制品，包括独木舟和宗教仪式中使用的面具。 Dietler的研究将评估Caloosahatchee领导人对这些重要工艺品的生产和分配的组织，以及该组织对该地区政治不平等出现的影响。今天的考古学家对理解世界各地复杂社会的标志性继承和广泛基础的政治权威的出现非常感兴趣。 手工艺品的密集生产是一些主要社会政治权力的重要来源，也可能是卡卢萨人获得持久权威的重要途径。 该项目将通过考古发掘、实验性复制和博物馆收藏的研究相结合，探索精英对工艺品生产的控制。 Dietler的贝壳工具复制实验（2005年）改进了贝壳工具制造副产品和生产阶段的识别。 他在Buck Key和Alppa Island（2005-06年）对Caloosahatchee贝壳工具作坊的挖掘已经恢复了生产残留物，表明了工具生产的强度和效率。 最后，他从博物馆收藏的南佛罗里达贝壳工具数据库揭示了贝壳工具和木工工艺经济的空间组织和区域背景。 NSF的支持将有助于在时间和空间上精确定位这些数据，为关键文物和沉积物提供放射性碳年代和化学来源数据。 如果一个专门的工艺生产和分配系统与社会政治复杂性的其他迹象同时出现，如加紧建设项目和丧葬用品出现基于阶级的差异，那么它很可能在该地区制度化不平等的出现中发挥了重要作用。 在佛罗里达西南部收集的信息最终将与来自其他具有类似政治复杂性水平的地区的手工业经济数据进行比较，从而确定政治演变的基本机制。沿着解决人类学家感兴趣的研究问题外，该项目还将增加佛罗里达和加州公众对科学过程的参与。 在佛罗里达，数十名志愿者将参与考古发掘、实验室处理和文物分析。 更广泛的观众将通过有组织的挖掘现场图尔斯参观、公开讲座以及当地通讯和报纸上的文章接触到这项研究。 本科生将参加佛罗里达和加州的实地考察和实验室工作，在此过程中获得分析方法的宝贵培训。 挖掘出的材料将在两个或两个以上的佛罗里达博物馆展出，并将永久提供给佛罗里达自然历史博物馆的研究人员。 项目成果将通过在权威期刊上发表和在国家考古会议上介绍的方式提供给科学界。

Under the supervision of Dr. Jeanne Arnold, John Dietler will investigate the emergence of political complexity in the Caloosahatchee region of southwest Florida. This area was home to the powerful non-farming Calusa chiefdom during the sixteenth century AD, and is noted for a unique marine shell-based technology that first appeared over 4000 years ago. Shell axes and adzes were used throughout south Florida to craft a wide variety of wooden items, including dugout canoes and masks used in religious ceremonies. Dietler's research will evaluate Caloosahatchee leaders' organization of the production and distribution of these important craft items and the effect of that organization on the emergence of political inequality in the region.Archaeologists today are intensely interested in understanding the emergence of the inherited and broad-based political authority that marks complex societies around the world. The intensified production of craft goods was a significant source of political power in a number of chiefly societies and may have been an important route to lasting authority among the Calusa. This project will explore elite control of craft production through a combination of archaeological excavation, experimental replication, and research with museum collections. Dietler's shell tool replication experiments (2005) have improved the identification of shell tool-making byproducts and production stages. His excavations of Caloosahatchee shell tool workshops on Buck Key and Useppa Island (2005-06) have recovered production residues indicative of the intensity and efficiency of tool production. Finally, his database of south Floridian shell tools from museum collections reveals the spatial organization and regional context of the shell tool and woodworking craft economies. NSF support will help pinpoint these data in time and space, providing radiocarbon dates and chemical sourcing data for key artifacts and deposits. If a system of specialized craft production and distribution emerged at the same time as other signs of sociopolitical complexity, such as intensified construction projects and the appearance of class-based differences in burial goods, then it is likely to have played an important role in the emergence of institutionalized inequality in the region. Information gathered in southwest Florida will ultimately be compared with craft economy data that derive from other regions with similar levels of political complexity, allowing the identification of basic mechanisms underlying political evolution.Along with addressing research questions of interest to anthropologists, this project will increase public participation in the scientific process in both Florida and California. In Florida, dozens of volunteers will participate in archaeological excavations, laboratory processing, and artifact analysis. A far broader audience will be exposed to this research through organized tours of the excavation site, public lectures, and articles in local newsletters and newspapers. Undergraduate university students will participate in fieldwork and lab work in both Florida and California, gaining valuable training in analytical methods in the process. Excavated materials will be displayed at two or more Florida museums and will be available to researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History in perpetuity. Project results will be made available to the scientific community through publications in refereed journals and presentations at national archaeological conferences.