Economic Integration and Cultural Survival at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Katheryn Twiss博士和Amy Bogaard博士及其国际同事团队将花费三年时间研究早期农业社会小规模农作物和畜牧业的整合及其对文化稳定的影响。该团队汇集了美国、英国和土耳其的考古学家，他们专门从事动物、植物学和同位素分析，以研究安纳托利亚中部Catalhoyuk大型且长寿的新石器时代遗址中驯化动植物的社会和经济用途。他们驯化了在动荡时期(公元前7千年)对该遗址的持续占领，当时整个西南亚的主要定居点遭受了崩溃。该项目将检验两个假设：1.小规模农作物和畜牧业在家庭层面的紧密整合是Catalhoyuk持续成功的根本；2.反对家庭分化的强大社会压力阻止了场地裂变。亚洲西南部的新石器时代(公元前9,700/9,000-5,850/5,500)标志着人类进化的一个重大转折点，并为更复杂的城市化和国家社会的发展奠定了基础。新石器时代的特点是世界上最早的动植物农业，以及大型永久村庄的地区性出现，大量的建筑，人口密度的显著增加，以及技术进步，如陶器的引入。这些物质创新与社会和经济分层、职业专业化和国内生产方式等深刻的重大文化发展有关。然而，新石器时代的农作物和畜牧业的结合不仅与这些积极的发展有关，而且还与导致文化不稳定的环境退化有关，这一点在区域“崩溃”事件中得到了反映。Catalhoyuk丰富的动植物组合提供了一个难得的机会，可以从不同的角度研究农业战略和场地稳定性之间的关系，关注成功而不是失败的社会经济原因。其目的是对场地的生产方式和其长期生存能力之间的关系有一个总体的了解。这项研究的智力价值是理论、方法和实质的。该项目将把动物学和植物学证据作为一项综合研究战略，以解决新石器时代农业“一揽子”中的整合程度问题。虽然人们普遍承认，近东早期耕作的成功和推广恰逢耕作和放牧双重建立之时，但迫切需要以初步科学证据为基础的具体地点研究，以澄清紧密交织的作物和牲畜管理做法对在西南亚内外推广农业“一揽子计划”的作用。这项研究的更广泛影响是，它将有助于提供关于小规模农业社会经济和文化繁荣背后的社会经济因素的重要信息。收集的信息不仅与亚洲和欧洲的史前有关，而且与当今粮食生产中的危机有关，这些危机与大规模土地所有权、过度专业化和家庭一级缺乏经济一体化有关。土耳其、英国和美国的学生将参加这个项目，以加强他们的培训，增加他们对近东史前历史的了解。

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Katheryn Twiss and Amy Bogaard and an international team of colleagues will spend three years investigating the integration of small-scale crop and livestock husbandry and its effects on cultural stability in an early agricultural society. The team brings together U.S., British and Turkish archaeologists specializing in faunal, botanical, and isotopic analyses to study the social and economic uses of plant and animal domesticates at the large and long-lived Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk, central Anatolia. These domesticates sustained occupation of the site through a turbulent period (the seventh millennium BC), when major settlements across southwest Asia suffered collapse. The project will test two hypotheses: 1. close household-level integration of small-scale crop and livestock husbandry was fundamental to Catalhoyuk's continued success; 2. strong social pressures against household differentiation prevented site fissioning. The southwestern Asian Neolithic (c. 9,700/9,000-5,850/5,500 BC) marked a major turning point in human evolution and set the stage for the development of far more complex urbanized and state societies. The Neolithic is characterized by the world's earliest plant and animal agriculture as well as by the regional advent of large permanent villages, substantial architecture, marked increases in population density, and technological advances such as the introduction of pottery. These material innovations are associated with such profoundly significant cultural developments as social and economic stratification, occupational specialization, and the domestic mode of production. However, the Neolithic combination of crop and livestock husbandry has been associated not only with these positive developments but also with environmental degradation leading to cultural instability, as reflected in episodes of regional 'collapse'. The rich plant and animal assemblages from Catalhoyuk provide a rare opportunity to investigate the relationship between agricultural strategy and site stability from a different angle, focusing on the socioeconomic causes of success rather than failure. The goal is to develop a general understanding of the relationship between the site's mode of production and its long-term viability.The intellectual merit of the research is theoretical, methodological, and substantive. The project will interdigitate faunal and botanical evidence as a combined research strategy to address the degree of integration in the Neolithic farming 'package'. While it is widely acknowledged that the success and spread of early farming in the Near East coincided with the dual establishment of cultivation and herding, site-specific studies based on primary scientific evidence are urgently needed to clarify the role of closely intertwined crop and livestock management practices for the spread of the agricultural 'package' both within and beyond southwest Asia. The broader impacts of the study are that it will contribute significant information about the socioeconomic factors underlying economic and cultural robusticity in small-scale farming societies. The information gathered will be relevant not only to Asian and European prehistory but to present-day crises in food production related to large-scale land ownership, overspecialization, and a lack of economic integration at the household level. Turkish, British and U.S. students will participate in the project to enhance their training and increase their knowledge of Near Eastern prehistory.