Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Archaeological Investigation of Erosion and its Effect on Social Processes in the Arctic

博士论文改进补助金：北极侵蚀及其对社会进程影响的考古调查

• 批准号: 1523025
• 负责人: Matthew Johnson
• 金额: $ 2.83万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-15 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1523025&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Archaeological

This award supports a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement project to investigate the relationship between erosion and economic inequality over the environmentally and socially dynamic first 500 years of Norse settlement in Hegranes, Skagafjörður, Iceland. The agricultural practices of the first settlers of Iceland, ca. 870 CE, caused widespread deforestation and soil erosion. Erosion moves sediments from one place to another, and can lead to either landscape degradation or augmentation. On Hegranes small abandoned farms lie near large successful farms that still operate today, and eroded areas are interspersed with productive grassland. This patchwork landscape allows investigation of erosion as related to farmstead abandonment and the development of social inequality. This research has implication for understanding how coupled human and environmental systems today might affect processes of social change. The researcher will use tephrochronology to compare the settlement sequence of small farms with associated environmental sequences of soil erosion and landscape change. The goal is to explore changes in number and distribution of small household farms, document processes of erosion, and investigate whether social reorganization of the landscape corresponds to increases in erosion. Larger, more powerful households likely benefited from abandonment of small farms, and this project will suggest how abandonment was managed to their advantage. This work will contribute to discussions about social and political consequences of human-initiated environmental change, focusing on unequal power relations between households that facilitate environmental degradation and social inequality.

该奖项支持一个博士论文改进项目，以调查在冰岛斯卡加菲约乌尔的Hegranes定居的前500年环境和社会动态中侵蚀和经济不平等之间的关系。 冰岛第一批定居者的农业实践。公元870年，大面积的森林砍伐和土壤侵蚀。 侵蚀将沉积物从一个地方移动到另一个地方，可能导致景观退化或扩大。 在Hegranes上，小型废弃农场位于今天仍在经营的大型成功农场附近，受侵蚀的地区散布着肥沃的草地。 这种错落有致的景观可以调查与农场废弃和社会不平等发展有关的侵蚀。 这项研究对于理解当今人类和环境系统的耦合如何影响社会变革进程具有重要意义。研究人员将使用火山灰年代学来比较小农场的定居序列与土壤侵蚀和景观变化的相关环境序列。 其目标是探索小型家庭农场数量和分布的变化，记录侵蚀过程，并调查景观的社会重组是否与侵蚀的增加相对应。 更大、更有实力的家庭可能从放弃小农场中受益，本项目将表明如何管理放弃对他们有利。 这项工作将有助于讨论人类引起的环境变化的社会和政治后果，重点是家庭之间不平等的权力关系，这种关系助长了环境退化和社会不平等。