CAREER: Exploring Agriculture, the Environment, and Social Change: Evidence from the Ancient Near East

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Alexia Smith博士将建立一项长期的地区性考古植物学研究，使用植物数据来研究农业、环境、气候变化的动态，以及从乌贝德时期到铁器时代(公元前6千年-公元前550年)整个西南亚早期酋长、国家级社会和帝国的发展和崩溃。到目前为止，考古植物学--研究古代人类与植物的相互作用--在研究早期社会复杂性方面一直没有得到充分利用，尽管它有很大的贡献。将研究来自一个环境多样化地区的六个地点的植物遗骸：叙利亚的Tell Qarqur、Tell Zeidan和Tell Leilan；土耳其的圣埃尤克和凯南·特普；以及亚美尼亚的Areni-1。一旦结合起来，这些数据将提供关于社会组织、环境和气候在过去影响农业决策的方式的有价值的信息。考古植物学样本将在夏季野外季节收集，并在学年期间在康涅狄格大学进行分析。这项研究将与教育相结合，以增加专业考古植物学家的人数；在今后的挖掘中更多地使用考古植物学；提高公众对考古学家所使用的方法的了解，努力加深对考古资源的重要性和脆弱性的了解；并提高公众对考古伦理和中东文化史的认识。该项目的学术价值突出了考古植物学在解决广泛的社会问题和扩大过去人类对环境和气候变化的反应方面的知识的潜力。来自Tell Zeidan和Kenan Tepe的数据将使人们能够调查粮食生产和初期社会复杂性之间的联系。来自Tell Leilan的数据将有助于关于气候变化在阿卡德帝国崩溃中所起作用的辩论。圣赫尤克和Tell Qarqur产生了社会流动和食物生产的长序列。Areni-1的遗骸提供了核桃、杏、杏仁和葡萄的驯化信息。综合起来，这些数据将揭示出环境多样化地区粮食生产的模式，从而从一个新的角度来审视早期国家的稳定性。这项建议的更广泛的影响包括：1)加强了与美国国内许多大学的博物馆、K-12教育工作者、教育专家和学者以及海外大学、博物馆和科研院所的学者的合作；2)为康涅狄格州大学和海外的研究生和本科生提供了考古植物学的培训和研究机会；3)加强了考古伦理教育，以及为非人类学本科生、见习的K-12科学教师和参与康涅狄格州自然历史博物馆成人和儿童推广计划的公众提供了用于生成和评估考古数据的一系列方法和理论；4)拓宽公众对气候、粮食生产和社会之间的复杂关系以及中东文化史的看法；5)公众获取通过Open Context和美国考古学会网站产生的数据和教材。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Alexia Smith will establish a long-term regional archaeobotanical study that uses plant data to examine the dynamics of agriculture, environment, climate change, and the development and collapse of early chiefdoms, state level societies, and empires across Southwest Asia from the Ubaid period to the Iron Age (6th millennium BC-550 BC). To date, archaeobotany, the study of human interactions with plants in antiquity, has been underutilized in the study of early social complexity, despite having much to offer. Plant remains from six sites spanning an environmentally diverse region will be studied: Tell Qarqur, Tell Zeidan, and Tell Leilan, in Syria; Çadýr Höyük and Kenan Tepe in Turkey, and Areni-1 in Armenia. Once combined, the data will provide valuable information on the ways in which social organization, environment, and climate affected agricultural decision making in the past. Archaeobotanical samples will be collected during summer field seasons and analyzed at the University of Connecticut during the academic year. This research will be integrated with education to increase the number of professional archaeobotanists; increase the use of archaeobotany in future excavations; enhance public knowledge of the methods that archaeologists use in an effort to deepen understanding of the importance and fragility of archaeological resources; and improve public awareness of archaeological ethics and the cultural history of the Middle East. The intellectual merits of this project underscore the potential of archaeobotany to address broad social questions and expand knowledge on the human response to environment and climate change in the past. Data from Tell Zeidan and Kenan Tepe will allow the link between food production and incipient social complexity to be investigated. Data from Tell Leilan will contribute to the debate concerning the role of climate change in the collapse of the Akkadian Empire. Çadýr Höyük and Tell Qarqur yield long sequences of social flux and food production. The remains from Areni-1 provide information on the domestication of walnut, apricot, almond, and grape. Combined, the data will expose regional patterning in food production across an environmentally diverse landscape, allowing the stability of early states to be examined from a new perspective. The broader impacts of this proposal include: 1) enhanced collaboration with museums, K-12 educators, education specialists, and scholars at numerous universities within the US as well as scholars at universities, museum, and scientific institutes overseas; 2) training and research opportunities in archaeobotany for graduate and undergraduate students at UConn and overseas; 3) enhanced education in archaeological ethics and the range of methods and theories used to generate and evaluate archaeological data for non-Anthropology undergraduates, trainee K-12 science teachers, and members of the public participating in the State of Connecticut's Museum of Natural History outreach program for adults and children; 4) broadening the public's perspectives on the complex relationships between climate, food production, and society, as well as the cultural history of the Middle East; and 5) public access to the data and teaching materials generated via Open Context and the Society for American Archaeology's website.