Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Complex Societies on the Periphery: Regional Networks in South India, 1st - 14th C AD

在Carla Sinopoli博士的指导下，博士生Uthara Suvrathan将研究印度半岛一个次区域的复杂性组织及其与公元1至14世纪期间整个次大陆进程，特别是帝国扩张的关系随时间的变化。苏夫拉坦的项目将检查通过系统的考古调查在巴纳瓦西腹地和古德纳普尔腹地收集的数据。巴纳西是地区首府，古德纳普尔是毗邻的同期较低级别的中心。巴纳瓦西作为卡丹巴王朝(公元4-6世纪)地区王国的首都而声名鹊起，并继续保持其作为行政中心的重要性，直到14/15世纪。然而，以巴纳瓦西为中心的政体在整个序列中并没有保持其独立性，尽管地区精英团体在该地区保持着存在。从7世纪到10世纪，该地区处于一系列帝国列强的控制之下。该项目将记录考古遗址的类型和分布，以记录有助于识别地方和帝国社会经济群体、制度和活动的材料模式。这些考古数据将与历史和碑文资料相结合，以形成巴纳瓦西区域组织的完整图景。通过对这些数据(文物、建筑、碑文记录)的分析，将有可能评估两种随时间推移的地区社会政治组织模式，其中一种模式假定由更大的帝国制度高度控制，另一种模式主张有限的外部联系和地区的相对独立。这些模型将利用多种考古证据加以运用：行政/政治权威和军国主义的物质证据(包括纪念性和防御性建筑和铭文)；聚落组织和景观上古迹的空间分布；意识形态和宗教以及生产和交换形式(反映在陶瓷和铁器技术以及名品贸易中)。帝国对遗址及其腹地的控制将在考古上以各种方式显现，包括行政和军事控制的证据；经济开采；集中的仪式活动；区域外网络的建立以及外部核心区建筑和陶瓷风格和宗教传统的传播。地方自治的证据可能包括建筑、仪式活动和物质文化中的区域风格的倾向；区域精英经济榨取的证据。该项目将对南亚区域社会文化实体的人类学研究做出重大贡献。研究结果将发表在提交给卡纳塔克邦考古和博物馆部门的一份报告中，并发表在印度和美国的同行评议期刊上。在研究过程中收集的藏品将被编目/整理并移交给印度政府，供后代学者进行比较研究。该项目还鼓励与印度学生进行学术互动。调查的结构将为来自印度大学的感兴趣的学生提供参与人类学考古研究和学习新技术和方法的机会。最后，该项目将记录该地区的考古历史，该地区的遗产由于扩大农业活动、新的建筑工程和遗址周围山区的密集伐木活动而迅速遭到破坏。

Under the direction of Dr. Carla Sinopoli, doctoral dissertation student Uthara Suvrathan will study the organization of complexity in a sub-region in peninsular India and its changing relationships through time with subcontinent wide processes, especially imperial expansion, during the 1st through 14th centuries AD. Suvrathan's project will examine data collected through a systematic archaeological survey in the hinterland of Banavasi, a regional capital and Gudnapur, an adjacent, contemporaneous lower order center. Banavasi rose to prominence as the capital of the regional kingdom of the Kadamba dynasty (4th- 6th centuries AD) and continued to maintain its importance as an administrative center until the 14th/15th centuries. The polity centered on Banavasi however, did not retain its independence throughout this sequence although regional elite groups maintained a presence in the region. From the 7th to the 10th centuries the region came under the control of a series of imperial powers. This project will record the type and distribution of archaeological sites in order to document the material patterning that will help to identify local and imperial socioeconomic groups, systems, and activities. This archaeological data will be integrated with historical and epigraphic sources to develop a complete picture of regional organization at Banavasi. Through the analysis of this data (artifacts, architecture, epigraphic records) it will be possible to evaluate two models of regional socio-political organization over time, one of which postulates a high degree of control by larger imperial systems and the other which argues for limited external contact and the relative independence of the region. These models will be operationalized using multiple lines of archaeological evidence: material evidence for administrative/ political authority and militarism (including monumental and defense architecture and inscriptions); settlement organization and the spatial distribution of monuments on the landscape; ideology and religion and forms of production and exchange (as reflected in ceramic and iron technologies and trade in prestige items). Imperial control at the site and its hinterland will be visible archaeologically in a variety of ways, including evidence for administrative and military control; economic extraction; centralized ritual activity; the establishment of extra-regional networks and the spread of architectural and ceramic styles and religious traditions from external core areas. Evidence for local autonomy may include a tendency towards regional styles in architecture, ritual activities and material culture; evidence for economic extraction by regional elites.This project will make a significant contribution to the anthropological study of regional socio-cultural entities in South Asia. The results will be published both in a report to be submitted to the Karnataka Department of Archaeology and Museums and in peer reviewed journals in India and the US. The collections made during the course of research will be catalogued/ organized and transferred to the government of India, making them available to future generations of scholars for comparative study. This project also encourages academic interaction with Indian students. The survey is structured such that it will provide an opportunity for interested students from Indian colleges to participate in anthropological archaeological research and learn new techniques and methods. Finally, this project will document the archaeological history in a region whose heritage is rapidly being destroyed due to expanding agricultural activities, new construction work and intensive logging activities in the hills surrounding the site.