Investigating The Relationship Between Environment And Social Complexity

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The formation of complex societies - those with hierarchically organized social, political, and economic systems - is a watershed occurrence in general human cultural evolution. 10,000 years ago, everyone lived in egalitarian societies; today, almost everyone lives in a complex nation-state. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Eric Jones will conduct archaeological research at Late Precontact (AD 1000-1600) sites in the southeastern United States to determine the landscape factors that influenced the formation of complex societies in this region. Examining the processes and circumstances surrounding how complexity was formed helps to determine the long-term social, political, and economic trajectories that have created modern conditions. Although archaeologists have made great strides in understanding how and why this process occurs, they are still learning. In particular, the reasons why complex societies arose and persisted in specific locations has rarely been studied and is thus not well understood. It is an important topic, however, because it can reveal the historical and cultural processes that have shaped the last 10,000 years of human history with regard to complexity. Specifically, it can improve understanding of historic and modern human geography because the distribution of societies of varying complexity impacted Native American-European interactions during the colonial period. Further, it can provide information about human interactions with the environment in relation to varying complexity.The Southeast, particularly the Piedmont, is an ideal area to study the spatial and landscape components of complexity because it was one of the few areas of North America occupied simultaneously by complex and non-complex societies. Furthermore, this area has a long history of archaeological research and detailed accounts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This three-year study will examine the environmental and cultural landscape features that influenced the patterning of societies of varying complexity. It will do this using a combination of archaeological excavation and survey, modeling of past landscapes using historical, geological, geographic, and environmental data, and geographic information systems (GIS)-based spatial analyses. The results will explain why some locations saw the development of social and political hierarchies and others did not. With regard to broader impacts, Dr. Jones' research will be one of the few projects to examine and compare the landscapes of non-hierarchical and hierarchical societies in North America. Understanding the origins of social hierarchies and related landscapes has the potential to inform about our own social structure, specifically with regards to interactions with the environment. Undergraduates will be involved in all levels of research, including archival work, fieldwork, artifact and spatial analyses, and the presentation and publication of results. Each year Dr. Jones and students will organize public archaeology events inviting students, local residents, and representatives from local Native American communities to engage in conversations about local history, the importance of cultural historic preservation, and Native American cultures and history. Information from this research will also be integrated into the Wake Forest Museum of Anthropology and will be made available as a digital database for other researchers.