HRRA: Emergency Regional Studies in the Heartland of the Yunnanese Bronze Age: Archaeological Survey in SW China

在国家自然科学基金的支持下，Alice Yao博士、Henry Wright博士和中国云南省文物考古研究所将对滇池盆地进行一个季节的考古研究。该团队将美国和中国的考古学专家聚集在一起，调查青铜时代强大的滇国政体的起源。在古代中国和东南亚地区不断升级的区域间战争和贸易的动态时期，滇国及其邻国似乎取得了突出的成就。目前的考古研究试图确定这些区域政治发展可能对滇池盆地的社会政治形成产生的影响。这种社会政治复杂性是由中国政府直接引入的，还是由与邻国的竞争和贸易引起的？只有在滇池发掘出青铜时代的占领遗址，才能揭开滇国神秘的起源。这个项目提供了有史以来第一次在这个地区寻找可能的史前职业的国际努力。解决滇池起源的本质需要对滇池盆地内社会政治发展的时间有深刻的理解。该项目的目标是1)通过考古实地调查和卫星图像确定史前占领地点，2)提供这些发现地点的辐射测量日期，这将有助于确定滇人政体的年表，3)从表面和暴露的切口收集材料，以记录这些地点的文化活动性质。该调查方法采用在引入机械化农业之前拍摄的高分辨率卫星图像，指导目标地区的受控实地调查，显示出更大的现场恢复希望。这项探索性的调查有可能绘制出滇地区从史前开始到青铜器时代政体鼎盛时期的起源图。如果成功，这项研究的直接学术价值将是在中国的一个地区发现史前占领遗址，而这些遗址几乎没有记录在案。这些遗址的恢复将提供必要的时空框架，以记录中国一个鲜为人知的地区的社会政治发展。这一基础工作将促进古代世界次生地层工作模型的发展。除了发现古滇遗址的科学价值外，该项目还希望通过在云南省的首次考古合作，促进中美之间的学术交流，从而产生更广泛的影响。此外，开发具有成本效益的侦察方法，同时又不具有侵入性，可以很容易地适应公共考古和遗产管理的需要。

With National Science Foundation Support, Dr. Alice Yao, Dr. Henry Wright and the Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in China will conduct one season of archaeological research on the Lake Dian Basin. The team brings together U.S. and Chinese specialists in archaeology to investigate the origins of a powerful Bronze Age polity known as the as the Dian Kingdom. Located in the well-protected high altitude basin of Lake Dian, the Dian Kingdom emerged as a formidable independent polity occupying an important communication node between ancient China and mainland Southeast Asia. The Dian Kingdom and neighboring polities appeared to have achieved prominence during a dynamic period of escalating interregional warfare and trade across ancient China and Southeast Asia. Current archaeological research seeks to determine the impact these regional political developments may have had on the sociopolitical formations in the Lake Dian basin. Was this sociopolitical complexity directly introduced by Chinese states or motivated by competition and trade with its immediate neighbors? Only the recovery of Bronze Age occupation sites in the Lake Dian can address the enigmatic origins of the Dian Kingdom. This project provides a first-ever international effort to search for possible prehistoric occupations in this region.Solving the nature of Dian origins requires a solid understanding of the timing of sociopolitical developments within the Lake Dian basin. The goals of the project are 1) to identify prehistoric occupation sites from archaeological field survey and satellite imagery, 2) to provide radiometric dates from these discovered sites that would contribute toward a chronology for the Dian polity, and 3) to collect materials from surfaces and exposed cuts to document the nature of cultural activities at these sites. The survey approach employs high resolution satellite imagery taken before the introduction of mechanized agriculture to guide a controlled field survey in target areas showing greater promise of site recovery. This exploratory investigation can potentially chart the genesis of the Dian region from its prehistoric beginnings to its florescence as a Bronze Age polity. If successful, the direct intellectual merit of the research will be the discovery of prehistoric occupation sites in a region of China where few sites have ever been documented. The recovery of these sites would provide the spatio-temporal framework necessary to chronicle the socio-political developments of a poorly understood region in China. This groundwork would then stimulate the development of working models for secondary formations in the ancient world. Beyond the scientific value of discovering ancient Dian sites, the project anticipates broader impact by promoting scholarly exchange between the US and China through this first time archaeological collaboration in Yunnan province. In addition, the development of cost-effective reconnaissance methods that are simultaneously non-intrusive can be easily adapted to fit the needs of public archaeology and heritage management.