High Risk: Deltaic Resilience and the Genesis of Mesopotamian Cities (Iraq)

高风险：三角洲韧性和美索不达米亚城市的起源（伊拉克）

• 批准号: 1045974
• 负责人: Jennifer Pournelle
• 金额: $ 3.5万
• 依托单位: University South Carolina Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-10-01 至 2011-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1045974&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Risk; Deltaic; Resilience; Genesis; Mesopotamian

With support from the National Science Foundation Drs. Jennifer Pournelle, Carrie Hritz and Jennifer Smith will conduct a reconnaissance of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial lowlands in order to investigate the contribution of wetland resources to the emergence and growth of cities in southern Mesopotamia, the earliest and longest-lived urban heartland in the world. With representatives from the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the team will (1) conduct reconnaissance of previously excavated sites, in order to identify loci for geoarchaeological data collection (2) assess the University of Basrah Department of Geology's physical capacity for sample storage and analysis, and (3) with Basrah colleagues, explore newly accessible areas and select specific locations for geoarchaeological coring and seismological imaging. This area includes a just-discovered relict landscape comprising over 4,000 hectares of now-dry, densely packed building foundations, fields, and canals previously submerged beneath Lake Hammar. Restoration of the Hammar marshes is now a high national priority and if quick action is not taken, the window of opportunity for conducting work in this region will close. The team will meet with faculty, government officials, and logistics and security personnel in order to prepare detailed plans, draft support contracts, obtain necessary permits, select locations, and collect pilot data toward a fully developed proposal for submission to NSF. Envisioned subsequent research will include a multi-year, multi-national program of geoarchaeological, geomorphological, and ethnoarchaeological survey and excavation aimed at rapid collection of evidence essential to assessing millennial-scale human-environment interaction in the deltaic landscape of southern Iraq during the 5th - 3rd millennia BC, when urban civilization arose there.The Tigris-Euphrates delta of southern Iraq is the locus of a continuous urbanpresence over five millennia. While new research indicates that contemporary proto-urban polities arose in the plains of northern Syria and southwestern Iran, those polities did not exhibit the robust longevity of the urban centers that emerged in Iraq's alluvial lowlands. Available evidence suggests that populations of the southern alluvium drew significant wealth and transportation advantage from their situation in a prograding deltaic system that provided varied and abundant resources even through cycles of dramatic climatic fluctuation. This deltaic resiliency, it is hypothesized sustained urbanizing processes in southern Mesopotamia through multiple, and multivariate, systemic changes in humans interactions with each other and their shifting environment. This award will launch a research program to test this hypothesis. This project has high potential for developing cooperative efforts throughout the Gulf region. With the University of Basrah, the project will, hopefully, build bridges to a new generation of Iraqi faculty and graduate students. Results will provide a basis for comparative studies of regions/ polities in other deltaic contexts such as the Indus Valley (Harrapan), coastal Peru (Caral-Supe, Chimu), Veracruz (Olmec), and Egypt, where coring programs in the Nile delta have shown that the earliest, most complex settlements coalesced within deltaic wetlands and their productivity was essential to state emergence.

在国家科学基金会博士的支持下。詹妮弗·普内尔、凯莉·赫里茨和詹妮弗·史密斯将对底格里斯河-幼发拉底河冲积低地进行勘察，以调查湿地资源对美索不达米亚南部城市的出现和发展的贡献，美索不达米亚南部是世界上最早和最长寿的城市中心地带。该团队将与伊拉克旅游和古物部的代表一起，(1) 对先前挖掘的遗址进行勘察，以确定地质考古数据收集的地点；(2) 评估巴士拉大学地质系样本存储和分析的物理能力；(3) 与巴士拉同事一起，探索新进入的区域并选择具体地点进行地质考古取芯和地震成像。该地区包括刚刚发现的遗迹景观，其中包括 4,000 多公顷现已干燥、密集的建筑地基、田野和运河，这些建筑地基、田野和运河以前都淹没在哈马尔湖之下。 恢复哈马尔沼泽现在是国家的高度优先事项，如果不迅速采取行动，在该地区开展工作的机会之窗将关闭。该团队将与教职员工、政府官员以及后勤和安全人员会面，以制定详细计划、起草支持合同、获得必要的许可、选择地点并收集试点数据，以提交给美国国家科学基金会的完整提案。设想的后续研究将包括一项多年期、多国的地质考古学、地貌学和民族考古学调查和挖掘计划，旨在快速收集对于评估公元前五至三千年期间伊拉克南部三角洲地区千年规模的人类与环境相互作用至关重要的证据，当时城市文明在那里兴起。底格里斯河-幼发拉底河 伊拉克南部三角洲是五千年来持续存在的城市所在地。 虽然新的研究表明，当代原始城市政体出现在叙利亚北部和伊朗西南部的平原，但这些政体并没有表现出伊拉克冲积低地城市中心那样的长寿。 现有证据表明，南部冲积层的居民从其所处的渐进三角洲系统中获得了巨大的财富和交通优势，即使在剧烈的气候波动周期中，该系统也提供了多样化和丰富的资源。据推测，这种三角洲的弹性是美索不达米亚南部持续的城市化进程通过人类彼此互动及其不断变化的环境的多重、多变量、系统性变化而实现的。该奖项将启动一项研究计划来检验这一假设。该项目具有在整个海湾地区开展合作的巨大潜力。 该项目有望与巴士拉大学合作，为新一代伊拉克教师和研究生搭建桥梁。结果将为其他三角洲背景下的地区/政体的比较研究提供基础，例如印度河流域（哈拉潘）、秘鲁沿海（卡拉尔苏佩、奇穆）、韦拉克鲁斯（奥尔梅克）和埃及，其中尼罗河三角洲的取芯计划表明，最早、最复杂的定居点在三角洲湿地内合并，其生产力对于国家的出现至关重要。