Collaborative Research: The Role Of Fortifications In Long Term Political Process

Ian林赛博士（普渡大学）和合作者Alan格林博士（斯坦福大学）、Maureen马歇尔博士（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳分校尚潘）、洛里Khatchadourian博士（康奈尔大学）和Adam T.史密斯（康奈尔大学），沿着在亚美尼亚的合作者，将调查战争之间的关系，解决模式，和政治发展在古代的过去。传统社会科学对前现代战争的研究通常将冲突定义为对物质需求的理性追求，或者是在政治复杂性的演变中寻求政治优势的有抱负的精英之间的战略竞争。然而，考古学是很好的定位，以提供一个更细致入微的古代战争的角度，侧重于社会行动和历史背景，塑造战争的动机，目标和文化习俗的更广泛的领域。这项研究将有助于对当代地区冲突的研究，其对政治和社会群体的身份的影响，以及与地方和政体的联系。由于持续的种族和国内冲突继续影响当代生活，了解过去战争的影响有助于确定现代冲突的原因和影响，同时制定应对措施。这项研究将有助于采取行动的学术努力，了解人类的政治，经济和定居的做法和主观性，出现在设防和军事化的lands.The石丘陵在南高加索的无处不在和金属武器的流行表明，暴力在区域社会政治发展中发挥了至关重要的作用。林赛博士和他的合作研究者将研究通过战争构成权威，创建和解散政治协会，并在青铜时代晚期和铁器时代时期（约1000年）形成政治经济的具体形式的制度机制。公元前1500-200年）。研究人员将研究暴力和战争在社区形成，社会秩序和社会政治边界中的作用，通过对亚美尼亚西北部上卡萨克河流域的防御景观进行历时性研究。特别是，他们将解决有关堡垒建设和放弃的历史如何告知政治协会的模型，在这些地区的暴力行为类型是在埋葬物品和人类骨骼遗骸上的证据，以及政治和战争的模式如何在高加索地区与邻近的近东和欧亚草原的区域环境变化和历史变化相关的问题。 研究小组将采用一系列传统和尖端的考古方法来解决这些问题，包括行人和磁力测量调查;使用无人机对堡垒和相关定居点进行航空摄影测量;测试挖掘墓葬和墓葬;对沼泽核心进行花粉分析以重建古环境背景;分析人类遗骸以研究人口统计学，创伤，饮食，流动性和社会身份;以及便携式X射线荧光（pXRF）和数字射线照相技术，用于对陶器材料进行初步的商品流通模式分析。这些技术结合起来，将为对南高加索的长期战争和社会政治生活进行强有力的评估奠定基础。此外，这项研究将有助于培训新一代的考古学家掌握一系列先进的研究方法，这将有助于改善一个经济上仍然处于不利地位的地区的学术研究基础设施。

Dr. Ian Lindsay (Purdue University) and collaborators Dr. Alan Greene (Stanford University), Dr. Maureen Marshall (University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign), Dr. Lori Khatchadourian (Cornell University) and Dr. Adam T. Smith (Cornell University), along with collaborators in Armenia, will investigate the relationship between warfare, settlement patterns, and political development in the ancient past. Traditional social science scholarship on pre-modern warfare has typically framed conflict as a rational pursuit of material needs, or as a strategic contest among aspiring elites seeking political advantage in the evolution toward political complexity. However, archaeology is well-positioned to offer a more nuanced perspective of ancient warfare that focuses on the broader fields of social action and historical contexts that shape the motivations, goals, and cultural practices of war. This research will contribute essential time depth to the study of contemporary regional conflicts, their impacts on the politics and identities of social groups, and the ties to place and polity. As persistent ethnic and civil clashes continue to impact contemporary life, understanding the impact of war in the past can help frame the causes and implications of modern conflicts while shaping responses to them. This research will contribute to actionable scholarly efforts to understand the long-term impacts on human political, economic, and settlement practices and subjectivities that emerge within fortified and militarized landscapes.The ubiquity of stone hillforts in the South Caucasus and the prevalence of metal weapons indicate that violence played an essential role in regional sociopolitical development. Dr. Lindsay and his co-investigators will study the institutional mechanisms through which warfare constituted authority, created and dissolved political association, and shaped a specific form of political economy during the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age periods (ca. 1500-200 BC). The researchers will examine the role of violence and warfare in community formation, social order, and sociopolitical boundaries through a diachronic study of fortified landscapes in the upper Kasakh River valley of northwestern Armenia. In particular, they will address questions regarding how the history of fortress construction and abandonment inform models of political association, what types of violent practices in these areas are evidenced in burial goods and inscribed on human skeletal remains, and how patterns of politics and warfare in the Caucasus correlate with regional environmental shifts and historical change in the neighboring Near East and Eurasian Steppe. The research team will employ a battery of traditional and cutting-edge archaeological approaches to address these issues, including pedestrian and magnetometry survey; the use of drones for aerial photogrammetry of fortresses and associated settlements; test excavation of burials and forts; pollen analysis of a bog core to reconstruct paleoenvironmental contexts; analysis of human remains to study demography, trauma, diet, mobility, and social identity; and portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and digital radiography on pottery materials to illuminate preliminary patterns of goods circulation. Combined, these techniques will provide the groundwork for a robust evaluation of the long-term engagement of warfare and sociopolitical life in the South Caucasus. In addition, this research will facilitate the training of a new generation of archaeologists in a range of advanced research methods, which will help improve the research infrastructure of scholarship in a region that remains economically disadvantaged.