Pastoralists and the State in Iron Age and Medieval Sweden

铁器时代和中世纪瑞典的牧民和国家

• 批准号: 0937312
• 负责人: Timothy Chevral
• 金额: $ 20.12万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Buffalo
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2012-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0937312&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Pastoralists; State; Iron; Age; Medieval

With NSF support, Dr. Tina Thurston and colleagues from the United States, Sweden, and Great Britain will conduct three and a half years of fieldwork on Sweden's Småland Plateau, seeking to understand how autonomous pastoral peoples are encapsulated by states and incorporated into state political and economic systems, often against their collective will. Local-state relations in Småland were "high-conflict" in nature: successive phases of independence, confederacy/hegemony, and forced "pacification" with varying impacts on ethnic identity, political cohesion, and economic strategies. Between AD 600 and 1550, twelve Plateau polities were incorporated into the Svear (later Swedish) state. Sketchy ethnohistories concern activities of social and political elites, incorporating real people and events and politically embroidered legends supporting later Svear agendas and identity. Of the local, ethnically-distinct forest pastoralist population, virtually nothing is known, except that the early historic state recorded non-cooperation, tax evasion, and "illegitimate" treaties with Sweden's enemies, culminating in 16th century armed rebellion.Cereal cultivation was impracticable on the marginal Plateau, though pastoralism was viable, as was exploitation of iron ore and wood, for charcoal used in smelting. To exploit the resources of this hostile region, beginning around AD 1100, state power was increased through sequential establishment of local state outposts, concurrent with rising taxation and labor demands. Did economic shifts accompany new demands? Was there intensification? If so, was it broad-based or limited to areas near royal centers? Did animal production increase, were new species added, were cereals introduced? Did quality of life and livelihood change over time? The project will document conditions as the state brought pressures to bear, significant enough to foment violent conflict. Critical to questions about this largely prehistoric context is the timing and extent of agricultural expansion waves, recognizable through the establishment of pioneering hamlets and the opening of new forest pasturage, assessed through datable sites and clearance features. Pedestrian survey, soil chemical survey, and test excavations will establish dwelling, farming, and industry locales, AD 500 to 1550, within the former autonomous Småland kingdoms of Tveta and Vista, determining sites appropriate for further investigation. Extant and new faunal assemblages, microregional pollen profiles, macrobotanical analyses, and the survey and dating of iron production features will further chart economic change. The ultimate intellectual contribution is a case study of state-pastoralist relationships, as contemporary and historic pastoralists have played important roles in state politics and economies, but typically have contempt for central authority and are unafraid of the subsequent conflicts, due to strong ethnic identity and sociopolitical cohesion. Pastoral peoples can have significant power, and the sequence through independence, hegemony, encapsulation, and subsumption is neither inevitable nor unidirectional. Most "encapsulation sequences" occurred long before the social sciences developed, and while contemporary outcomes are much-studied, the process is largely undocumented. The Plateau, with its full sequence, is ideal for studying the relationships between successive generations of rulers and subjects. The broader impacts of continued archaeological training and research opportunities afforded a multinational student cohort will have a positive impact on general and region-specific material and theoretical understandings.

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，蒂娜·瑟斯顿博士和来自美国、瑞典和英国的同事将在瑞典斯莫兰高原进行为期三年半的实地考察，寻求了解自治的游牧民族如何被国家封装并纳入国家政治和经济体系，这往往违背了他们的集体意愿。斯莫兰的地方-国家关系在本质上是“高度冲突”的：独立、邦联/霸权和被迫“绥靖”的连续阶段对种族认同、政治凝聚力和经济战略产生了不同的影响。在公元600年至1550年之间，12个高原政治被并入斯韦亚尔（后来的瑞典）国家。粗略的民族史关注社会和政治精英的活动，包括真实的人物和事件，以及支持后来的斯维尔议程和身份的政治绣传奇。关于当地的森林游牧民族，我们几乎一无所知，只知道这个国家在历史上曾与瑞典的敌人签订过不合作、逃税和“非法”条约，并在世纪的武装叛乱中达到顶峰。在边缘高原上种植谷物是不可行的，但畜牧业是可行的，开采铁矿石和木材是冶炼用的木炭。为了开发这个敌对地区的资源，从公元1100年左右开始，国家权力通过连续建立地方国家前哨来增加，同时增加税收和劳动力需求。经济变化是否伴随着新的需求？有强化吗？ 如果是的话，它是广泛的还是仅限于皇家中心附近的地区？动物产量增加了吗？新物种增加了吗？谷物引进了吗？生活质量和生计是否随着时间的推移而改变？该项目将记录国家施加压力的情况，这些压力足以煽动暴力冲突。关于这一基本上是史前背景的问题的关键是农业扩张浪潮的时间和程度，通过建立开拓性的村庄和开辟新的森林牧场来识别，通过可追溯的遗址和清除特征来评估。行人调查、土壤化学调查和测试挖掘将在前斯莫兰自治王国特维塔和维斯塔内建立公元500年至1550年的居住、农业和工业场所，确定适合进一步调查的地点。现存和新的动物群组合，微区域花粉剖面，宏观植物学分析，以及铁生产特征的调查和定年将进一步绘制经济变化。最终的智力贡献是国家-牧民关系的案例研究，因为当代和历史上的牧民在国家政治和经济中发挥了重要作用，但由于强烈的民族认同和社会政治凝聚力，他们通常蔑视中央权威，并不怕随后的冲突。游牧民族可以拥有重要的权力，通过独立、霸权、封闭和包容的顺序既不是不可避免的，也不是单向的。大多数“封装序列”发生在社会科学发展之前很久，虽然当代的结果被广泛研究，但这一过程在很大程度上没有记录。高原，其完整的序列，是研究连续几代统治者和臣民之间关系的理想选择。持续的考古培训和研究机会提供了一个多国学生群体的更广泛的影响将产生积极的影响，一般和区域特定的材料和理论的理解。