The Fort Ancient Regional Movement (FARM) Project

在国家科学基金会的支持下，在罗伯特·库克博士和一组同事的指导下，FORM(古堡区域运动)项目将收集关键数据，以了解人类社会在区域间规模的发展。这是一个与我们今天的多民族世界有关的问题，就像在考古学过去一样。该项目的重点是确定来自邻近地区的移民是否、何时以及如何影响俄亥俄州西南部的古堡开发，这是美国中西部史前的一个长期问题，但其方法结构对许多世界地区具有普遍吸引力。该项目有助于解决边界和跨界流动方面的更广泛问题，这些问题相对较少受到关注。位于复杂系统(如密西西比河、中美洲、美索不达米亚)边缘的边疆区常常沦为核心区文化的被动接受者。然而，最近考古学家对这种边界动力学产生了兴趣。然而，与早期的方法不同，研究人员现在将前沿地区视为文化丰富、社会充满活力的地方，在那里，社会参与者对远程互动做出关键决定，新的混合队形往往是结果。理论重点认识到，区域间人口流动和相互作用是造成文化边界模糊的关键因素。该项目的总体人类学意义在于，通过重点关注与这些维度相关的数据，推动区域间研究向前发展，提供关键信息，然后研究为什么会发生这种变化。需要收集的关键数据与人类遗骸的证明有关。这将通过对来自11个村庄的个体样本的生物和停尸房框架中的牙釉质锶含量进行临时检查来实现。该项目将对教育产生更广泛的影响，无论是在大学环境中还是对普通公众来说。人类学本科生和研究生将受益于实验室分析方面的培训，从而获得本科生的荣誉和研究生水平的论文。人工制品分析的具体活动将包括对陶器、投射点、金字塔和管道的基本检查，包括适合项目的功能、风格和时间属性。人类遗骸的具体活动将是协助锶采样。所有学生参与者还将在与代顿自然历史学会合作举办的为期一天的职业研讨会上接受指导。该项目还将在教育公众了解可以用考古数据回答的问题类型方面产生更广泛的影响，特别是现有博物馆藏品的高度研究效用。通过公布有关这些收藏品的数据，该项目将说明妥善管理材料的重要性。此外，本研究中调查的古堡藏品的未来研究项目将受益于拥有更可靠的年代学参照系。

With National Science Foundation support, the FARM (Fort Ancient Regional Movement) Project, under the direction of Dr. Robert Cook and a team of colleagues, will gather key data for understanding the development of human societies at interregional scales. This is a problem as relevant to our multiethnic world today as in the archaeological past. The project focuses on determining if, when, and how migration from neighboring regions factored into local Fort Ancient developments in southwest Ohio, a long-standing problem in the prehistory of the Midwest U.S. but with methodological structure of general appeal to many world regions. The project contributes to broader issues on frontiers and cross-boundary flows that have received relatively little attention. Frontier zones at the edges of complex systems (e.g., Mississippian, Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia) have often been relegated to the status of passive receivers of culture from core areas. However, recently archaeologists have become interested in such boundary dynamics. Unlike earlier approaches, however, researchers are now addressing frontier zones as culturally rich and socially dynamic places where social actors make key decisions about long-distance interaction and new hybrid formations are often the result. The theoretical focus recognizes that interregional population movements and interactions are key contributors to the blurry nature of cultural boundaries. The general anthropological significance of the project is to move interregional studies forward by focusing on data relevant to these dimensions, providing key information to then examine why such moves occurred. The key data to be gathered pertain to the proveniencing of human remains. This will be accomplished by temporally examining the strontium content of tooth enamel in a biological and mortuary framework for a sample of individuals from eleven villages. The project will have broader impacts in education, both in university settings and for the general public. Undergraduate and graduate anthropology students will benefit by being trained in lab analyses, resulting in undergraduate honors and graduate level theses. Specific activities for artifact analyses will include basic examination of pottery, projectile points, gorgets, and pipes, including functional, stylistic, and temporal attributes as appropriate to the project. Specific activities for human remains will be to assist in strontium sampling. All student participants will also be mentored during a day-long career workshop in partnership with the Dayton Society of Natural History. The project will also have broader impacts in educating the general public about the types of questions that are answerable with archaeological data, and particularly the high research utility of extant museum collections. By promulgating data about these collections, the project will illustrate the importance of properly curated materials. Additionally, future research projects on the Fort Ancient collections investigated in the present study will benefit from having more solid chronological frames of reference.