Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Settlement, Political and Social Transformation in Armagh, Northern Ireland

在Tina L. Thurston博士的指导下，Jennifer Shaffer-Foster将为她的博士论文收集数据。在过去两个季节的考古实地工作的基础上，她将进行地球化学调查，然后在北爱尔兰的阿马郡进行小规模的挖掘。阿马既有铁器时代（公元前700年-公元400年）的公民仪式中心，也有中世纪早期（公元400-1200年）的基督教行政中心，传说是由帕特里克建立的。因此，该地区有可能揭示社会和政治结构在这段漫长的时间内是如何发展和变化的。谢弗-福斯特女士将确定属于不同社会阶层的遗址，允许考虑统治当局的角色和社区条件。这将为不断变化的社会政治关系提供更平衡的理解，这种方法在史前和现在都有应用。它还将深入了解在以生存为基础的社会中，社会机构如何提供稳定和调解变革。考古学有能力追踪很长一段时间的变化，从中吸取的经验教训适用于今天世界上的第三世界地区。在爱尔兰中世纪早期，raths，一种带有围墙和沟渠的圆形家庭围栏，在全岛建造。考古工作一直把重点放在这些结构上，因为它们非常显眼，有时非常丰富，而且因为它们是不封闭的，或者是“平坦的”。遗址隐藏在无处不在的牧场之下，超出了视觉范围。然而，了解这些很少被研究的扁平遗址是至关重要的，因为它们看起来与城市是同时代的，可能居住着来自不同社会经济背景的大多数人口。由于它们的能见度接近于零，因此该项目使用地球化学技术系统地识别平坦地点，确定它们在-à-vis raths中的用途，并检查属性如何分布，提供自下而上的方法。以及修订后的？自上而下？在一个从典型的更平等的铁器时代向更集中的组织转变的时代，这种观点是正确的。在地理信息系统数据库中管理的全覆盖地球化学调查将揭示5个月周围景观中的地点，从Armagh逐渐向南，从而受到新成立的当局的监督。普通定居点的测试挖掘结果表明，磷酸盐含量升高，可以与主导该地区考古学的更知名的精英遗址进行比较。结果将在网上公开，该项目将进一步促进谢弗-福斯特女士的学术和智力发展。

Under the guidance of Dr. Tina L. Thurston, Jennifer Shaffer-Foster will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. Building on two past seasons of archaeological fieldwork she will conduct a geochemical survey followed by small scale excavation in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Armagh contains both an Iron Age (700 BC-AD 400) civic-ceremonial center and an Early Medieval (c. AD 400-1200) Christian administrative center, legendarily founded by Patrick. The region thus has the potential to shed light on how social and politicas structures developed and changed over this extended time span. Ms Shaffer-Foster will identify sites belonging to a variety of social classes, permitting consideration of both the role of ruling authorities and community-based conditions. This will provide a more balanced understanding of changing sociopolitical relationships, an approach that has applications in both prehistory and the present. It will also provide insight into how, in subsistence based societies social institutions serve to provide stability and mediate change. Archaeology has the ability to trace change over long periods of time and the lessons learned are applicable in third world regions of the world today.During the Irish Early Medieval period, raths, circular domestic enclosures with a wall and ditch, were constructed across the island. Archaeological work has focused on these structures because they are highly visible, are sometimes very wealthy, and because unenclosed, or ?flat? sites lie hidden under ubiquitous pasture beyond the scope of visual prospection. Yet understanding these little-studied flat sites is crucial, as they appear contemporary with raths and likely housed the majority of the population from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Because of their near-zero visibility, the project uses geochemistry to systematically identify flat sites, determine their use vis-à-vis raths, and examine how property was distributed, providing a ?bottom-up? as well as a revised ?top-down? perspective in an era that saw shifts from a typically more egalitarian Iron Age basis to a more centralized organization. Full coverage geochemical survey, managed within a GIS database, will reveal sites in the landscapes surrounding five raths, progressively further south from Armagh and thus the oversight of newly established authorities. Results of test excavations in ordinary settlements indicated by elevated phosphate can be compared with the better-known elite sites that dominate the region's archaeology. Results will be made publically available online and the project will further Ms. Shaffer-Foster's academic and intellectual development.