Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Social Adaptation In Cross Cultural Contexts

博士论文改进补助金：跨文化背景下的社会适应

• 批准号: 1444994
• 负责人: William Fash
• 金额: $ 0.86万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2015-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1444994&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Social

In diverse contexts of the ancient and modern worlds, the study of culture contact has proven critical to understanding political trajectories and the emergence of ethnic and class identity. To reconstruct how these phenomena developed, scholars have increasingly looked to archaeology as a methodology capable of exploring the long-term impact of culture contact on ethnic groupings and social inequality in early societies. The archaeological project described here had been designed to study one of these contexts: a Preclassic (1000 BC - AD 250) borderland center from the time of Mesoamerica's early urban settlements. The site was located on the cultural frontier between the emergent Maya and Olmec civilizations. By demonstrating how different social classes in this frontier center variably adapted some customs from their neighbors while combining and developing unique practices of their own, the researchers will demonstrate how borderland groups can flexibly integrate foreign practices through time as they work to maintain and improve their social position. This research is relevant to ongoing studies of both historic and modern-day identity and will help improve understanding of frontier contexts today. The fieldwork will be conducted by Jeffrey Dobereiner, a Harvard University graduate student, and will provide data for his doctoral dissertation. Thus it will further his education as a scientist. Because of close collaboration with Mexican students the project will strengthen long term scientific ties between the US and Mexico.As a frontier community between several emergent Preclassic cultures, the decisions made by these borderland residents provide a critical data set from which to explore how non-local connectivity affected different parts of ancient Mesoamerican society in different ways. Throughout the site, unique architecture, burials and ceramics that draw upon several separate cultural identity groups have been found, alongside a wide range of sources for imported goods such as marine shell and obsidian. While this evidence indicates that site residents articulated with varied cultural currents of Preclassic Mesoamerica while maintaining their own independent identity, the mechanism of this independence is unclear. Through field research in households at diverse social levels, the researchers will explore whether elites or commoners were the primary actors controlling how and when these foreign practices were adopted, rejected, and modified. This project at Rancho Búfalo, Chiapas, Mexico will use field work, laboratory analysis and chemical techniques to demonstrate who was mediating these variable adaptations, and in which social strata foreign customs first arrived. By reconstructing how the people of this region variably integrated these customs to negotiate their tenuous social position, the final results will provide a case-study in research on culture contact and frontier peoples more broadly.

在古代和现代世界的不同背景下，文化接触的研究已被证明是理解政治轨迹和种族和阶级身份的出现的关键。为了重建这些现象是如何发展的，学者们越来越多地将考古学视为一种能够探索早期社会中文化接触对种族群体和社会不平等的长期影响的方法。这里描述的考古项目旨在研究这些背景之一：中美洲早期城市定居点时期的前古典（公元前1000年-公元250年）边境中心。该遗址位于新兴的玛雅文明和奥尔梅克文明之间的文化前沿。通过展示这个边疆中心的不同社会阶层如何从他们的邻居那里适应一些习俗，同时结合和发展自己独特的做法，研究人员将展示边疆群体如何在努力维持和改善他们的社会地位时，随着时间的推移灵活地整合外国做法。这项研究与正在进行的历史和现代身份研究有关，将有助于提高对当今边疆背景的理解。 这项实地考察将由哈佛大学研究生杰弗里·多贝雷纳进行，并将为他的博士论文提供数据。因此，它将进一步他的教育作为一个科学家。由于与墨西哥学生的密切合作，该项目将加强美国和墨西哥之间的长期科学联系。作为几个新兴的前古典文化之间的边境社区，这些边境居民所做的决定提供了一个关键的数据集，从中探索非本地连接如何以不同的方式影响古代中美洲社会的不同部分。在整个遗址中，发现了独特的建筑，墓葬和陶瓷，这些建筑，墓葬和陶瓷借鉴了几个不同的文化身份群体，以及海洋贝壳和黑曜石等进口商品的广泛来源。虽然这些证据表明，遗址居民在保持自己独立身份的同时，表达了前古典中美洲的各种文化潮流，但这种独立性的机制尚不清楚。通过对不同社会层次家庭的实地研究，研究人员将探讨精英或平民是否是控制这些外国做法如何以及何时被采用、拒绝和修改的主要行为者。在墨西哥恰帕斯州兰乔布法洛的这个项目将利用实地工作、实验室分析和化学技术来证明是谁在调节这些可变的适应，以及外国习俗首先到达哪个社会阶层。通过重构这一地区的人们如何融合这些习俗来谈判他们脆弱的社会地位，最终的结果将为更广泛的文化接触和边疆民族研究提供案例研究。