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

在Tina L博士的指导下，瑟斯顿，詹妮弗沙弗福斯特将为她的博士论文收集数据。在过去两个季节的考古实地考察的基础上，她将在北方爱尔兰的阿马县进行一次地球化学调查，然后进行小规模的挖掘。 阿马包含铁器时代（公元前700年至公元400年）的公民礼仪中心和中世纪早期（公元前400年至公元前400年）。公元400-1200年）基督教行政中心，由帕特里克建立。因此，该区域有可能揭示社会和政治结构如何在这一漫长的时间跨度内发展和变化。Shaffer-Foster女士将确定属于各种社会阶层的遗址，以便考虑执政当局的作用和社区条件。这将为不断变化的社会政治关系提供一个更平衡的理解，这种方法在史前和现在都有应用。它还将提供洞察力，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化。考古学有能力跟踪变化在很长一段时间内和经验教训是适用于第三世界地区的世界今天。在爱尔兰早期中世纪时期，raths，圆形的家庭围栏与墙壁和沟，在岛上建造。考古工作集中在这些结构，因为他们是高度可见的，有时是非常富有的，因为不封闭，或？平的？遗址隐藏在随处可见的牧场之下，超出了视觉探测的范围。 然而，了解这些很少被研究的平坦地点是至关重要的，因为它们与拉斯是同时代的，并且可能居住着来自各种社会经济背景的大多数人口。 由于其接近零的可见性，该项目使用地球化学系统地确定平坦的网站，确定其使用维斯维斯raths，并检查财产是如何分布的，提供了一个？自下而上以及修订版的？自上而下在一个时代的观点，看到了从一个典型的更平等的铁器时代的基础上，以一个更集中的组织转变。在地理信息系统数据库内管理的全覆盖地球化学调查将揭示五个拉特周围景观中的地点，这些地点逐渐从阿马向南延伸，从而受到新成立的当局的监督。在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。研究结果将在网上公布，该项目将促进Shaffer-Foster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.