Collaborative Research: Exploring Adaptive Social Networks in the Face of Geographic Adversity

这项研究的基本目标是了解传统群体如何随着时间的推移和大范围地理区域的变化而保持和适应社会关系，尽管他们的人口密度较低，自然环境不断变化。这项研究主要集中在美国西南部，那里重大的长期环境变化为观察社会网络随时间的变化奠定了基础。增进对历史社会如何适应的理解，有助于洞察现代传统社会如何适应和维护自己的社会网络。在国家科学基金会的支持下，Barbara Mills博士和Jeffery Clark博士将与一个研究团队合作，研究美国西南部查科地区考古中社会和空间网络的动态。研究小组将结合社交网络分析和地理信息系统来分析查科地区的陶瓷、石材和建筑数据。查科峡谷世界遗产位于10世纪至12世纪初被称为“查科世界”的空间中心，集中了被称为“大房子”和“大猕猴桃”的建筑特征。它是如何变得突出的，以及中央峡谷与当时社区的社会关系，是人们广泛感兴趣的持久的考古学问题。这项研究建立在查科地区过去大量研究的基础上，通过汇编一个新的数据集，整合了查科峡谷内外的建筑和物质文化数据。该数据库将添加到查科研究档案馆的查科世界数据库中，以及来自西南社会网络项目的公元1200年后的陶瓷和石材数据。对现有收藏品的新陶瓷分析和黑铁矿来源分析将补充已出版和未出版报告中的数据。这些数据将被用来解决以下问题：(1)查科豪宅之间是如何联系的？(2)普韦布洛·博尼托和其他查科峡谷豪宅在区域网络中是社会中心吗？(3)豪宅和豪宅社交网络的轨迹是如何随着时间的推移而变化的？以及(4)大房子和大基瓦与它们周围的小房子社区有什么关系？最近的研究表明，有必要分析整个地区的数据，而不是假设它是一个完整的系统，以更好地理解大房子社区之间以及中央峡谷之间的联系方式。这项研究有可能解决目前在许多考古地区提出的几个问题，而不仅仅是查科。这些问题包括等级和中心的关系，以及特定历史进程的作用，如移徙、社会多样化和非国家社会中的不平等。这项研究的更广泛的影响包括：(1)与查科研究档案馆合作，提供对查科世界数据库的更新；(2)创建一个新的数据库，整合关于大房子、大猕猴桃和选定的离群点社区的文物数据；(3)对该地区感兴趣的受众进行公开演讲；(4)广泛用于公共宣传和课堂的《考古西南》杂志的特刊；(5)一系列期刊文章；以及(6)培训研究生将社会网络分析应用于考古数据集。

The fundamental goal of this research is an understanding of how traditional groups maintain and adapt social ties over time and across large geographic areas in spite of their low population density and changing natural environment. The research is focused in the United States Southwest where significant long-term environmental changes set the scene for observing societal network changes over time. Improved understanding of how historic societies adapted provides insight into how modern-day traditional societies might adapt and maintain their own social networks. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Barbara Mills and Dr. Jeffery Clark will collaborate with a team of researchers to look at the dynamics of social and spatial networks in the archaeology of the Chaco region of the U.S. Southwest. The research team will combine social network analysis and geographic information systems to analyze ceramic, lithic, and architectural data in the Chaco region. Chaco Canyon World Heritage Site is at the spatial center of what has been called the "Chaco World" during the 10th to early 12th centuries, and contains a concentration of architectural features known as great houses and great kivas. How it came to prominence and the social relationship of the central canyon to contemporaneous communities are enduring archaeological questions of broad interest. The research builds on a considerable amount of past research in the Chaco region by compiling a new dataset integrating architectural and material culture data from within and outside Chaco Canyon. The database will add to the Chaco World database at the Chaco Research Archive and ceramic and lithic data for the post-A.D. 1200 period from the Southwest Social Networks Project. New ceramic analyses of existing collections and obsidian provenance analyses will augment data from published and unpublished reports. These data will be used to address the following questions: (1) How were Chaco great houses related to each other? (2) Were Pueblo Bonito and other Chaco Canyon great houses socially central in the regional network? (3) How did trajectories of great house and great kiva social networks change over time? And (4) how did great houses and great kivas relate to their surrounding communities of small houses? Recent research has suggested the need to analyze data from throughout the region, without assuming it was an integrated system, to better understand the ways in which great house communities were connected to each other and the central canyon. The research has the potential to resolve several questions currently being raised in many archaeological regions, not just Chaco. These include the relationship of hierarchy and centrality, and the role of specific historical processes such as migration, social diversification, and inequality in non-state societies. The broader impacts of this research include: (1) collaboration with the Chaco Research Archive to provide updates to the Chaco World Database; (2) creation of a new database that integrates artifact data on great houses, great kivas, and selected outlier communities; (3) public talks to interested audiences throughout the region; (4) a special issue of the magazine, Archaeology Southwest, which is widely used for public outreach and in classrooms; (5) a series of journal articles; and (6) training of graduate students in the application of social network analysis to archaeological datasets.