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

合作研究：防御工事在长期政治进程中的作用

• 批准号: 1561240
• 负责人: Lori Khatchadourian
• 金额: $ 1.22万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-05-01 至 2019-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1561240&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Role; Fortifications; Long

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.

Ian Lindsay 博士（普渡大学）和合作者 Alan Greene 博士（斯坦福大学）、Maureen Marshall 博士（伊利诺伊大学香槟分校）、Lori Khaatchadourian 博士（康奈尔大学）和 Adam T. Smith 博士（康奈尔大学）以及亚美尼亚的合作者将研究古代战争、定居模式和政治发展之间的关系。关于前现代战争的传统社会科学学术通常将冲突视为对物质需求的理性追求，或者是有抱负的精英之间在政治复杂性演变中寻求政治优势的战略竞争。然而，考古学能够为古代战争提供更细致的视角，重点关注更广泛的社会行动领域和塑造战争动机、目标和文化实践的历史背景。这项研究将为当代区域冲突、其对社会群体政治和身份的影响以及与地方和政体的联系的研究提供必要的时间深度。随着持续不断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了解现代冲突的原因和影响，同时制定应对措施。这项研究将有助于开展可行的学术努力，以了解对人类政治、经济和定居实践以及在防御和军事化景观中出现的主观性的长期影响。南高加索地区石头山堡的普遍存在和金属武器的盛行表明，暴力在区域社会政治发展中发挥了重要作用。 Lindsay 博士和他的合作者将研究青铜时代晚期和铁器时代（约公元前 1500-200 年）战争构成权威、创建和瓦解政治联盟以及塑造特定政治经济形式的制度机制。研究人员将通过对亚美尼亚西北部卡萨克河上游河谷的防御景观进行历时研究，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。特别是，他们将解决以下问题：要塞建造和废弃的历史如何影响政治联盟的模式，这些地区的哪些类型的暴力行为在随葬品中得到证实并刻在人类骨骼遗骸上，以及高加索地区的政治和战争模式如何与邻近的近东和欧亚草原的区域环境变化和历史变迁相关联。 研究小组将采用一系列传统和前沿的考古方法来解决这些问题，包括行人和磁力测量；使用无人机对堡垒和相关定居点进行航空摄影测量；墓葬和堡垒的试掘；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、创伤、饮食、流动性和社会认同；对陶器材料进行便携式 X 射线荧光 (pXRF) 和数字射线照相，以阐明商品流通的初步模式。结合起来，这些技术将为对南高加索地区的战争和社会政治生活的长期参与进行强有力的评估奠定基础。此外，这项研究将有助于对新一代考古学家进行一系列先进研究方法的培训，这将有助于改善经济上仍然处于不利地位的地区的学术研究基础设施。