Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Transition to Agriculture in Southern Scandinavia

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Kurt Gron先生将分析北欧Ertebølle（公元前5400-4000年）和斯堪的纳维亚南部的Trichterbecher（公元前4000-3500年）文化的几个遗址中石器时代晚期和新石器时代早期的动物遗骸。分析工作将在T. Douglas Price博士的监督下进行，涉及的材料来自丹麦西北新西兰的一组出土遗址，以及丹麦日德兰半岛东部的一个过渡性贝壳堆，并将包括以前发表的数据。这项研究的基本目标是深入了解在传统社会中促进变革或阻碍变革的因素。南斯堪的纳维亚，似乎说明了后者，并提出的研究有望增加对所涉及的抑制因素的科学理解。在公元前4000年左右，斯堪的纳维亚半岛驯养动物和植物是欧洲向农业过渡的最后阶段之一。在此之前的近一千年里，欧洲已经有了农业，但斯堪的纳维亚半岛南部还没有农业。在Ertebølle采集者没有采用农业的情况下，觅食群体和农业群体之间也有了接触。在这一延迟之后，农业开始了，但以一种特殊的方式。这一时期的特点是驯化动物和植物的迅速引进，但在随后的近五千年里，它们的重要性很低，大规模的环境变化，以及以新型陶瓷和定居系统的形式出现的文化变化，同时也有一些文化连续性的证据。尽管对斯堪的纳维亚南部农业起源的考古研究历史悠久，但关于其原因、时间和相关人员的共识观点仍然难以捉摸。像解释农业起源这样复杂的问题需要可靠的数据集，不仅包括过渡时期，还包括之前的时期。由于丹麦最早的农民的考古记录很少，要想清楚地了解这一转变，最好的方法是研究Ertebølle文化和他们的动物经济。通过应用多种方法并将这些数据与其他学术研究相结合，格隆先生将把过去和现在的研究结合起来，引入新的分析类型和变异性模型，为未来的研究提供信息。这些分析将侧重于Ertebølle地区在农业开始之前动物利用的地理和区域变化，并将建立和测试这种动物经济内部的变化模型。动物骨骼的研究在石器时代的研究中尤为重要，因为动物遗骸是研究这类文化最可靠的数据集之一。格隆将使用多种方法，包括传统的动物考古学、化学和统计方法，通过动物利用的视角来了解丹麦农业的积累和过渡。这里应用的方法将告知并适用于理解世界范围内农业的起源和转变，这是人类历史的关键问题之一。这项研究将为格隆先生提供高水平和独特的培训，并将促进跨大西洋石器时代的长期研究和学术合作，因为该项目依赖于与一些丹麦和其他欧洲学者和学生的合作。出版物将提交同行评审，结果将在学术会议上以及向公众展示。由于人类与动物的关系是人类的一个关键特征，因此进一步了解人类与自然环境之间的相互作用是永远相关的。

With National Science Foundation support Mr. Kurt Gron will analyze late Mesolithic and early Neolithic animal remains from several sites of the northern European Ertebølle (5400-4000 B.C.) and Trichterbecher (4000-3500 B.C.) cultures of Southern Scandinavia. Analyses will be performed under the supervision of Dr. T. Douglas Price and involve materials from a cluster of excavated sites located in northwest Zealand, Denmark, as well as a transitional shell midden in eastern Jutland, Denmark, and will include previously published data. The fundamental goal of the research is to gain insight into the factors which, in traditional societies, either promote change or resistance to it. Southern Scandinavia, appears to illustrate the latter and the proposed research hopefully will increase scientific understanding of the inhibitory factors involved. The adoption of domesticated animals and plants in Scandinavia was one of the last transitions to agriculture in Europe, around 4000 B.C. For nearly a millennium prior, farming was present in Europe but not southern Scandinavia, and there was contact between foraging and farming groups without an adoption of farming by Ertebølle foragers. After this delay, agriculture began, but in an idiosyncratic fashion. This was characterized by the rapid introduction of domesticated animals and plants but their low importance subsequently for nearly half a millennium, large-scale environmental changes, and culture change in the form of new types of ceramic and settlement system concurrent with some evidence of cultural continuity. Despite the long history of archaeological inquiry into the origins of agriculture in southern Scandinavia, a consensus view of the causes, timeline, and the people involved remains elusive. Questions as complicated as explaining the origins of agriculture require robust data sets of not only the transitional era, but also antecedent periods. Due to the scant archaeological record of the earliest farmers in Denmark, a clear understanding of the transition may be best understood by studying the Ertebølle culture and their faunal economies. By applying several methods and integrating this data with other scholarship, Mr. Gron will tie together past and present research, introducing new types of analysis and models of variability which will inform future research. These analyses will focus on geographical and regional variability in Ertebølle animal use just prior to the onset of farming in the region, and will build and test a model of variability within such animal economies. The study of animal bones is particularly important in Stone-Age research, as faunal remains are one of the most robust data sets available for study of such cultures. Gron will use multiple approaches, including traditional zooarchaeological, chemical, and statistical methods to understand the build-up, and transition to, agriculture in Denmark through the lens of faunal use.Methods applied here will inform and be applicable for understanding agricultural origins and transitions worldwide, one of the key questions of human history. This research will provide high-level and unique training for Mr. Gron and will foster long-term transatlantic Stone-Age research and scholarly cooperation, as this project relies on collaboration with a number of Danish and other European scholars and students. Publication will be submitted for peer-review, and results will be presented at scholarly conferences as well as to the general public. As the relationship of humans with animals is a key trait our kind, further understanding the interaction between people and their natural environment is perpetually relevant.