Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Long Term Relationship Between Political Authority And Economic Organization

社会科学研究的一个主要关注点是确定社会复杂社会发展的基本机制，以及较大的城镇如何施加向心力，将这些社会的人口聚集在一起并使其融合。只有考古学才能追溯到这一发展的最早部分，在此期间建立了后来建立的模式。对早期复杂社会的系统研究表明，促进其发展的社会、环境和经济条件具有相当大的变异性，对考古案例的比较揭示了这种变异性的模式，为不同的发展力量如何结合和互补提供了洞察。该项目将特别侧重于政治权威与为人民提供日常生活的实用物品的制度组织之间的关系。早期尺子与这些基本经济体系之间的联系鲜为人知。研究人员问，控制、管理或从基本商品的生产和分配中获利是否、如何以及在多大程度上有助于早期尺子展示其政治权威。这种关系可能采取的不同形式可能会为建立在不同核心原则上的政治实体奠定基础，并导致或多或少的长期政治稳定。更好地了解促进大规模社会经济发展和政治稳定的基本因素，对由这些社会组成的世界作出明显贡献，这些社会具有不同的组织模式和历史，在实现政治稳定和满足其人民的经济需要方面取得了不同程度的成功。在罗伯特·D·德雷南博士的指导下，博士生卡米拉·凯尔索将对先前研究从中国中南部江汉平原的两个新石器时代城墙城镇中发现的实用陶片进行地球化学分析。这些陶片的成分变化模式将被研究，以描绘新石器时代晚期(公元前3300-2000年)的陶器分销网络。在这段时间里，这两个城镇中的一个小城发展起来，变得越来越集中，而另一个小镇陶家湖的人口则变得不那么集中。这些替代轨迹为系统评估中央集权政治权力与经济发展之间的关系提供了一个理想的案例。除了其实质性成果外，该项目还将为博士生提供必要的研究培训，并促进匹兹堡大学与中国的几个机构之间更紧密的学术合作：武汉大学、湖北省考古研究所、中国科学院和中南大学。

A major concern of social science research has been to identify the mechanisms underlying the development of socially complex societies and the ways in which larger towns and cities exert centripetal forces that draw together and integrate the populations of these societies. Only archaeology can trace the earliest parts of this development, during which the patterns built on later were established. Systematic study of early complex societies has shown considerable variability in the social, environmental, and economic conditions that foster their development, and comparisons of archaeological cases reveal patterns in this variability that provide insight into how different developmental forces can combine and complement each other. This project will focus especially on the relationship between political authority and the organization of systems for providing a population with the utilitarian goods of daily life. The connections between early rulers and these basic economic systems are poorly known. Researchers ask whether, how, and to what extent controlling, managing, or profiting from the production and distribution of basic goods contributed to the ability of early rulers to project their political authority. The different forms that this relationship could take might set the stage for political entities founded on different core principles and lead to greater or lesser long-term political stability. Greater understanding of the basic factors that encourage economic development and political stability in large-scale societies makes a clear contribution in a world composed of such societies, with varied organizational patterns and histories and and with different degrees of success in achieving political stability and in providing for the economic needs of their populations.This project will assess the degree to which changes in distribution networks of basic goods correspond with the centralization and decentralization of political units. Under the supervision of Dr. Robert D. Drennan, the doctoral candidate, Camilla Kelsoe, will carry out a geochemical analysis of a sample of utilitarian pottery sherds recovered by previous research from two Neolithic walled towns in the Jianghan Plain of south-central China. Patterns in the compositional variability of these pottery sherds will be examined to delineate pottery distribution networks through the late Neolithic period (3300-2000 BCE). One of these two towns, Xiaocheng, developed and became increasingly centralized through this period, while the population of the other, Taojiahu, became less centralized. These alternative trajectories present an ideal case in which to systematically assess the relationship between centralized political authority and economic development. In addition to its substantive results, the project will provide essential research training for the doctoral candidate and foster closer academic collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and several institutions in China: Wuhan University, the Hubei Province Institute of Archaeology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Central South University.