Late Prehistoric Warfare in Eastern North America: Spatial and Temporal Variation in its Nature and Intensity

北美东部史前晚期战争：其性质和强度的时空变化

• 批准号: 1049464
• 负责人: George Milner
• 金额: $ 11.36万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-01-15 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1049464&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Late; Prehistoric; Warfare; Eastern; North

Archaeological materials provide a temporally deep perspective on the nature and intensity of warfare among the small-scale, or "tribal," societies that dominated most of human existence. Of particular interest is variation over time and space in the chances of intergroup tensions escalating into outright violence, measured archaeologically using walled settlements and skeletons of casualties. Sufficient data have been collected from several parts of the world to indicate the existence of long periods when conflicts were common, but also prolonged stretches of relative peace. Little is known, however, about precisely where and when fighting among groups was likely to break out, and why that occurred. This subject is of enduring significance as people today continue to confront conflicts involving groups defined along community and kin lines (tribal as opposed to national identities) that can be exceedingly costly in lives and property.This three-year National Science Foundation project, conducted by Dr. George R. Milner and Mr. George Chaplin, will produce the first comprehensive account of when, where, and why people fought each other in prehistoric eastern North America, with an emphasis on the last 1500 years of prehistory (prior to ca. AD 1500). Dramatic cultural changes occurred during that time as early food-producing communities characterized by relatively egalitarian social relations were transformed into larger agricultural societies, many of which were dominated by hereditary chiefs. The project completes a multi-year (unfunded) effort to assemble the archaeological (settlements surrounded by palisades) and osteological (skeletons with conflict-related trauma such as arrow injuries) data necessary to understand how warfare was conducted, who was involved (casualties), and how the intensity of conflict varied over time and across prehistoric eastern North America. The first step in the project involves the generation of multiple density surfaces, interpolated through Geographic Information Science (GIS) procedures, that summarize the spatial distribution of archaeological evidence for conflict. The result can be loosely visualized as a series of overlays at various points over a 1500 year-long period that show areas with abundant evidence of warfare as opposed to those with little or no signs of conflict. Taken together, the density surfaces, each representing a separate slice of time, will depict the waxing and waning of intergroup conflict across eastern North America. Once assembled, that information will be combined with broadly characterized cultural areas and environmental zones to identify conditions associated with periods and places where warfare was likely to occur and where it was not. This second component of the project evaluates the correspondence between parts of density surfaces characterized by high and low warfare and a patchwork of cultural and natural areas, which varied in their spatial distribution, resource productivity, the boundaries between them, and their relative isolation from one another. By doing so, it should be possible to establish whether conflicts, at a coarse-grained level, were largely a function of the material conditions of life, social relations defined by particular cultural systems and institutions, or a combination of both.This NSF project also serves as a "proof of concept" for procedures that can be applied to many kinds of archaeological data suitable for conversion to density surfaces for analytical purposes. It squarely addresses a particularly vexing archaeological problem: how to deal quantitatively with uneven-quality data from the large geographical areas that are the appropriate scale for analyses of many forms of human interaction. This work complements more focused studies of specific regions and individual sites that emphasize local effects, specific accommodations to social and natural settings, the proximate motivation for fighting, and the ritual and social roles of war or peace-related activities in specific societies.

考古材料提供了一个时间上的深刻视角，在小规模或“部落”社会中，战争的性质和强度占主导地位的大部分人类的存在。特别令人感兴趣的是，随着时间和空间的变化，群体间的紧张关系升级为彻底的暴力的可能性，从考古学角度来看，使用有围墙的定居点和伤亡人员的骨架来衡量。 从世界几个地区收集到的足够数据表明，在很长一段时期内，冲突是常见的，但也有长期的相对和平。 然而，人们对各团体之间可能在何时何地爆发战斗以及为什么会发生战斗知之甚少。 这一课题具有持久的重要性，因为今天的人们继续面临着沿着社区和亲属关系（部落而不是民族身份）的群体的冲突，这些冲突可能会造成生命和财产的极大损失。米尔纳和乔治先生卓别林，将产生第一个全面的帐户，何时，何地，以及为什么人们在史前北美东部互相战斗，重点是过去1500年的史前史（在公元前。公元1500年）。 在这段时间里，文化发生了巨大的变化，早期的粮食生产社区以相对平等的社会关系为特征，转变为更大的农业社会，其中许多由世袭酋长统治。 该项目完成了一项多年（无资金）的努力，以收集必要的考古学（被栅栏包围的定居点）和骨骼学（具有与冲突有关的创伤，如箭伤的骨骼）数据，以了解战争是如何进行的，谁参与了（伤亡），以及冲突的强度如何随着时间的推移和史前北美东部的变化。 该项目的第一步是生成多密度表面，通过地理信息科学（GIS）程序进行插值，总结冲突考古证据的空间分布。 其结果可以粗略地想象为1500年来不同时间点的一系列叠加图，这些叠加图显示了有大量战争证据的地区，而不是那些几乎没有冲突迹象的地区。 总的来说，密度表面，每一个代表一个单独的时间片，将描绘整个北美东部群体间冲突的消长。 这些资料一旦汇集，将与具有广泛特征的文化区和环境区相结合，以确定与可能发生战争和不可能发生战争的时期和地点有关的条件。 该项目的第二个组成部分评估了以高和低战争为特征的密度表面部分与文化和自然区域的拼凑之间的对应关系，这些区域在空间分布、资源生产力、它们之间的边界以及它们之间的相对隔离方面各不相同。这样，就有可能确定冲突在粗层次上是否主要是物质生活条件、特定文化制度和机构所界定的社会关系的一个功能，或者两者的结合。这个NSF项目也作为一个“概念验证”适用于许多种类的考古数据，适合转换为密度表面进行分析。 它直接解决了一个特别令人烦恼的考古学问题：如何定量处理来自大地理区域的质量不均匀的数据，这些数据是分析多种形式的人类互动的适当尺度。 这项工作补充了对特定地区和个别地点的重点研究，这些研究强调当地影响、对社会和自然环境的具体适应、战斗的直接动机以及特定社会中与战争或和平有关的活动的仪式和社会作用。