Excavations and Geophysical Survey at the Early Historic Town of Talapada, India

在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，莫妮卡·l·史密斯（Monica L. Smith）博士和一个由美国和印度同事组成的团队将在印度东部的塔拉帕达（Talapada）考古遗址进行三个季节的实地研究，以调查城镇在城市化环境中的作用。塔拉帕达在早期历史时期（公元前4世纪至公元3世纪）被占领，这是印度次大陆发生重大变化的时代，包括佛教的发展，第一次广泛使用文字，以及城市的出现。塔拉帕达是最近发现的一个遗址，周围环绕着一个巨大的城墙，这个城墙是史密斯和他的同事以前工作过的西苏帕尔加尔附近城市中心防御墙的四分之一大小的精确复制品。对塔拉帕达遗址的调查提供了一个评估城镇如何与该地区主要中心相互作用的机会。塔拉帕达的居民显然参与了一些政治联系，这在城墙建设中得到了体现。然而，该遗址的人工制品类型的多样性表明，该镇不仅仅是Sisupalgarh的小型版本，居民可能已经产生并维持了自己独特的经济，社会和仪式传统。这项研究将特别关注公元前三世纪的“卡林加战争”前后塔拉帕达与其较大邻国的关系，在这场战争中，该地区曾被一个较大的邻国短暂征服。该项目将是印度第一个利用相同的调查方法，包括地球物理调查和挖掘，来检查早期历史时期不同规模的遗址。挖掘将提供有关文物和建筑的数据，并产生一系列全面的放射性碳年代，以确定该遗址随时间发展的各个阶段。在挖掘的同时，该团队还将利用非破坏性的地球物理调查来追踪Talapada附近大小区域的地下建筑特征，以检查社会和空间配置，并将其与Sisupalgarh进行比较。该项目的智力价值包含在其对城市化景观中中等规模人口中心城镇的调查中。通过调查和发掘，该项目将能够从普通人的角度分析南亚早期历史时期的社会、经济和政治发展。这些数据将被结构化，以便与其他已知的考古地区进行比较，在这些地区，历史悠久的城镇和城市的居民创造了灵活的互动网络，使他们即使在地区冲突时期也能繁荣发展。该研究项目的广泛影响包括印度和美国研究人员和学生之间的重要国际合作；为印度和美国学生提供论文和学位论文的数据；考古现场技术与分析训练；为大学课程和公开演讲提供资源。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Monica L. Smith and a team of colleagues from the United States and India will conduct three field seasons of research at the archaeological site of Talapada in eastern India to investigate the role of towns in urbanizing environments. Talapada was occupied in the Early Historic period (4th century BC to 3rd century AD), an era marked by momentous change in the Indian subcontinent that included the development of Buddhism, the first extensive use of writing, and the emergence of cities. Talapada is a recently discovered site surrounded by a massive encircling rampart that is an exact replica, at one-quarter size, of the fortification wall at the nearby urban center of Sisupalgarh where Smith and colleagues have previously worked. Investigations at the site of Talapada present an opportunity to evaluate how towns interacted with the region's dominant center. Talapada's inhabitants clearly were engaged in some political linkages as exhibited in rampart construction. However, the variability of artifact types at the site suggests that the town was not simply a small-size version of Sisupalgarh and that the inhabitants may have generated and sustained their own distinctive economic, social, and ritual traditions. The research will particularly focus on Talapada's relationship with its larger neighbor before and after the "Kalinga War" of the third century BC in which the region was briefly conquered by a larger neighboring state. The project will be the first in India to utilize the same methods of investigation, including geophysical survey and excavations, to examine sites of different sizes in the Early Historic period. The excavations will provide data on artifacts and architecture, as well as generating a comprehensive series of radiocarbon dates to identify the stages of the site's development over time. In conjunction with the excavations, the team also will utilize non-destructive geophysical survey to trace subsurface architectural features in neighborhood-sized areas at Talapada to examine social and spatial configurations that also will be compared with Sisupalgarh. The intellectual merit of the project is encompassed in its investigation of towns as intermediate-sized population centers in an urbanizing landscape. Through survey and excavation, the project will enable the analysis of the social, economic, and political developments of South Asia's Early Historic era from the perspective of ordinary people. The data will be structured for comparison with other archaeologically known regions in which the inhabitants of long-lived towns and cities created flexible networks of interaction that enabled them to thrive even during periods of regional conflict. The broader impacts of the research project include significant international collaboration between Indian and US researchers and students; provision of data for theses and dissertations for both Indian and US students; training of students in archaeological field techniques and analysis; and provision of resources for university classes and public presentations.