An Archaeological Study of Identity Negotiation Within A Multicultural Community Context

最近的考古研究表明，生活在多个社区的人们之间的互动不仅反映了政治和经济关系，而且还影响了这些关系的发展。这个项目将通过研究公元14世纪和15世纪以来大平原北部农业社区的住宅建筑所体现的公开身份声明与地区政治经济变化之间的关系，来推进这一研究路线。关于社会和文化多样性的公开辩论创造了一个充满活力的环境，在这种环境中，规范受到挑战，新的政治、经济和社会关系可能出现。考古学家可以通过调查个人和家庭如何选择表达他们与邻居之间的社会或文化差异，来理解关于价值观和意义的公开辩论的内容和意义。考古学视角可以提供特殊的价值，因为它可以追踪图案如何在重要的时间段内发展。研究殖民时代原住民社区的考古学家早就认识到，声称拥有不同身份的人之间的日常互动会带来政治和经济后果。然而，考古学家现在知道，早在欧洲人来到美洲之前，多元群落就已经很常见了。社区的形成和解散、多尺度的迁徙、战争和联盟的形成以及贸易不断地改变着古老的文化景观，因此，了解多元社区内的社会过程对于重建非洲大陆的本土历史至关重要。这个项目将有助于越来越多的比较考古学和历史研究，研究殖民主义、移民、战争或生态变化带来的人们之间的日常互动如何帮助塑造大规模的历史趋势。古文化研究小组的马克·米切尔博士和他的研究团队将研究围绕现在的北达科他州哈特河和密苏里河交汇处的原住民聚居区内的家庭多样性。公元1400年至1600年间，以人口密度增加、长途贸易和互动扩大、战争更加频繁和经济集约化为标志的一波变革性变化席卷了这一地区。然而，目前对个别社区内运作的社会过程知之甚少。这个项目将通过比较居住在两种截然不同类型的房屋中的家庭的私人生活来研究社区内的社会互动，一种在当时被认为是本地的，另一种被认为是外国的。主要目的是确定这些家庭的建筑选择是由他们不同的出身、地位、意识形态联系的社区所驱动的，还是这些因素的某种组合。了解为什么不同的家庭选择不同的社会或文化差异表达方式，将有助于洞察人口、定居和经济实践中支撑区域变化的因素。该项目将涉及来自两个不同机构的学生，并将扩大美国印第安人对地区性考古研究的参与。

Recent archaeological research shows that interactions among people living in plural communities not only reflect political and economic relationships but also influence how those relationships develop. This project will advance that line of research by studying the relationships between public declarations of identity embodied in residential architecture and regional political-economic changes in northern Great Plains farming communities dating to the A.D. 1400s and 1500s. Public debates about social and cultural diversity create a dynamic environment where norms are challenged and new political, economic, and social relations can emerge. Archaeologists can understand the content and therefore the significance of public debates over values and meanings by investigating how individuals and households chose to express the social or cultural differences between themselves and their neighbors. An archaeological perspective can provide special value since it can trace how patterns develop over significant periods of time. Archaeologists studying Colonial-era native communities have long recognized the political and economic consequences of day-to-day interactions among people claiming different identities. However, archaeologists now know that plural communities were common long before Europeans came to the Americas. Community formation and dissolution, migration at multiple scales, warfare and alliance formation, and trade continually transformed the ancient cultural landscape and as a consequence understanding social processes within plural communities is crucial for reconstructing the native history of the continent. This project will contribute to a growing body of comparative archaeological and historical research on the ways in which daily interactions among people brought together by colonialism, migration, war, or ecological change helped shape large-scale historical trends. Dr. Mark Mitchell, of PaleoCultural Research Group, along with his research team will study household diversity within the native settlements clustered around the confluence of the Heart and Missouri rivers in present North Dakota. A wave of transformative change, marked by increased population density, expanded long-distance trade and interaction, more frequent warfare, and economic intensification, swept through this region between A.D. 1400 and 1600. However, little currently is known about the social processes operating within individual communities. This project will study intra-community social interaction by comparing the private lives of families living in two distinctly different types of houses, one that was recognized at the time as local and another that was recognized as foreign. The primary aim is to determine whether these families' architectural choices were motivated by their differing communities of origin, status, ideological affiliation, or some combination of these factors. Understanding why different households chose particular expressions of social or cultural difference will provide insight into the factors underpinning regional changes in demography, settlement, and economic practice. The project will involve students from two different institutions and will broaden participation by American Indians in regional archaeological research.