Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Social Organization And The Importance Of "Persistent Places"

在过去的60年里，越来越多的联邦立法明确关注美国土著文化资源的保护。然而，尽管作出了这些努力，在公共土地上管理传统文化财产--对土著群体具有特殊意义的地方--仍然是一个有争议的问题。人类学家和美洲原住民社区之间的当代合作表明，特定地点的重要性远远超出了它们的经济效用，随着时间的推移，一个给定的地点可能对多个群体和许多不同的原因很重要。基于这些见解，这一博士论文研究项目将通过对位于肯塔基州东北部的14个阿迪纳(约公元前500年-公元250年)遗址的案例研究，探索这种对地点的理解对过去景观利用动态的影响。这项研究的结果将有助于了解美国史前一个鲜为人知的时期，并通过更新现有的博物馆藏品来加强研究和教育的基础设施。这一结果还将对《美洲土著坟墓保护和遣返法》所要求的遣返程序产生影响。因此，这个项目证明了考古研究对制定联邦文化资源管理政策的持续相关性。为了探索过去景观利用的动态，该项目重点研究了纪念碑的建造和建造者的领土行为之间的关系-这是考古学研究中的一个长期范例。这项研究没有从遗址的空间分布来推断领土行为，而是采用了一种新的方法来调查领土行为，方法是评估(1)特定古迹如何参与和(2)谁参与其中的变化。前者是通过调查共享做法的空间分布来评估的，这一点由不同埋葬环境之间的殡葬行为的相似性所表明。后者通过量化存在于多个空间尺度上的生物变异性的相对量来评估。这是通过使用表型差异作为生物变异性的替代测量，并通过收集和分析与各种颅骨和牙齿测量和形态特征有关的数据来实现的。如果纪念碑具有地域性功能，那么可以预期它们已经被嵌入到相对稳定的社会结构中。换句话说，随着时间的推移，它们将被相同的一个或多个社会群体使用，导致共同实践和生物变异性的空间聚集。或者，正如对当代土著人民的研究所表明的那样，纪念碑可能已经被多个社会团体以多种方式参与。在这种情况下，纪念碑不太可能具有领土功能，相反，可以预期它已经嵌入了一系列不断变化的社会结构中。这种情况将导致失去在领土设想中预期的共同做法和生物变异性的空间集聚。这项研究的结果将与上面给出的预期进行比较，以提供对过去景观使用的细微差别评估。

Over the past sixty years, a growing body of federal legislation has been explicitly concerned with the preservation of Native American cultural resources. Yet, despite these efforts, the management of traditional cultural properties - places of special significance to indigenous groups - on public lands remains a contentious issue. Contemporary collaborations between anthropologists and Native American communities have demonstrated that the importance of particular locations extends far beyond their economic utility and that, over time, a given place may be important to multiple groups and for many different reasons. Drawing on these insights, this doctoral dissertation research project will explore the implications that such an understanding of place has for the dynamics of landscape use in the past through a case study of 14 Adena (c. 500 BC - AD 250) sites located in northeastern Kentucky. The results of this research will contribute to understanding of a poorly understood period in American prehistory as well as enhance the infrastructure for research and education by updating existing museum collections. Results will also have implications for the repatriation process required by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Consequently, this project demonstrates the continuing relevance that archaeological research has for the development of federal policy concerning cultural resources management.To explore the dynamics of landscape use in the past, this project focuses on the relationship between the construction of monuments and territorial behavior on the part of their builders - a long-standing paradigm within archaeological research. Rather than inferring territoriality from the spatial distribution of sites, this research takes a novel approach to investigating territorial behavior by evaluating change over time in both (1) how specific monuments were engaged with and (2) who was engaging with them. The former is assessed by investigating the spatial distribution of shared practices as indicated by similarities in mortuary behavior between discrete burial contexts. The latter is assessed by quantifying the relative amounts of biological variability present at multiple spatial scales. This is accomplished by using phenotypic variance as a proxy measure for biological variability and by collecting and analyzing data pertaining to a variety of cranial and dental metric and morphological traits. If monuments served a territorial function, they can be expected to have been embedded within relatively stable social configurations. In other words, they would have been used by the same social group or groups over time, resulting in spatial clustering of both shared practices and biological variability. Alternatively, as work with contemporary indigenous peoples suggests, monuments may have been engaged with by multiple social groups and in multiple ways. In this case, monuments are unlikely to have served a territorial function and, instead, can be expected to have been embedded within a sequence of changing social configurations. This situation would result in the loss of the spatial clustering of shared practices and biological variability that is expected within a territorial scenario. The results of this research will be compared to the expectations given above to provide a nuanced evaluation of past landscape use.