Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: A Geochemical Perspective On Productive Differentiation

研究人员试图了解导致世界上大多数人现在生活的非常复杂、大规模的社会的过程，以及将其成员联系在一起并促进持续发展的因素。这样的社会开始在世界许多地方单独出现，为调查这些早期复杂社会共有的潜在因素以及不同的环境如何以不同方式塑造它们提供了机会。考古学能够研究复杂社会的起源是独一无二的，因为它们的起源发生在很久以前--远远超出了书面历史的范围。由于所有人类社会都必须为其成员提供至少最基本的生活必需品，经济组织是理解为什么发展在一些早期复杂社会中蓬勃发展以及它们的轨迹是如何走上它们所走的道路的关键之一。研究的重点是一些人类群体最初是如何在不同的当地群体之间建立足够的信任，以便他们能够相互依赖，生产所有家庭生存所需的商品。该项目将通过重建一组村庄的经济来促进这一努力，因为这些村庄在大约6000年前经历了这样的转变。在这一过程中，它将进一步提高研究人员将先进的地球化学分析技术应用于努力更好地重建古代人类关系的能力。它将为考古学学生提供这些技术方面的培训，并将促进专家在将物理和化学技术应用于考古材料方面对人类学研究问题的更深层次的理解。该项目将有助于博士生陶力先生的科学教育，并为他撰写学位论文提供必要的数据。这也将有助于加强匹兹堡大学和中国科学院大学之间的机构联系。对考古学家来说，古代陶器一直是一种特别重要的材料，因为它被广泛使用，很容易破裂，而且它的碎片一旦被丢弃，几乎可以无限期地保存下来。它通常是考古学家从古代复杂社会中发现的最丰富的材料。该项目将以陶器作为了解古代经济组织的窗口。通过识别用于制陶的不同粘土来源的化学指纹，研究人员将追踪到公元前4500年至3000年之间，将不同地方制造的陶器带到中国东北部三个红山村庄的家庭的分销网络。它将决定这些网络有多复杂，涉及的经济相互依赖有多广泛，以及陶器的生产和分销是否与新出现的领导角色和第一次区域政治一体化有重要联系。

Researchers seek understanding of the processes that led to the very complex, large-scale societies in which most of the world's population now lives, and of the factors that bound their members together and fostered continued development. Such societies began to emerge separately in many parts of the world, providing an opportunity to investigate what underlying factors these early complex societies share, as well as how different contexts shaped them in varying ways. Archaeology is uniquely able to study the origins of complex societies because their beginnings occurred far back in time - well beyond the reach of written history. Since all human societies must provide their members with at least the basic necessities of life, economic organization is one of the keys to understanding why development flourished in some early complex societies and just how their trajectories took the courses that they did. Research focuses how some human groups initially built enough trust among different local groups that they could rely upon each other to produce goods that all families needed for their survival. This project will contribute to this effort by reconstructing the economics of one set of villages as they underwent such a transformation some 6,000 years ago. In the process it will further researchers' ability to put advanced analytical techniques in geochemistry to work in the effort to reconstruct ancient human relations better. It will provide training in these techniques to archaeology students, and it will foster deeper appreciation of anthropological research questions on the part of specialists in applying physical and chemical techniques to archaeological materials. This project will serve to further the scientific education of Mr. Tao Li, a doctoral candidate and provide the data necessary for his to produce a dissertation thesis. It will also serve to strengthen institutional ties between the University of Pittsburgh and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.Ancient pottery has always been a particularly important material to archaeologists because it was widely used, it breaks easily, and its fragments, once discarded, are preserved almost indefinitely. It is usually the most abundant material archaeologists recover from ancient complex societies. This project will use pottery as a window into ancient economic organization. By identifying the chemical fingerprints of different sources of clay for pottery making, the researchers will trace out the networks of distribution that brought pottery made at different places to the families of three Hongshan villages in northeastern China between about 4500 and 3000 BC. It will determine how complex these networks were, how extensive was the economic interdependence involved, and whether pottery production and distribution had important connections to emerging leadership roles and the first regional political integration.