Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Relationship Among Environment, Culture And Agricultural Intensification

在过去的一万年里，农业逐渐取代了狩猎和采集，成为全球占主导地位的食物来源。农业生产力为人口增长、社会复杂性以及城市和国家的出现提供了坚实的基础。然而，在我们对最早的驯化和有限作物的种植与早期国家实行的集约化农业的理解之间存在着巨大的智力差距。随着时间的推移，农业是如何加强的？加强粮食生产需要什么资源？农业集约化进程背后的驱动力是什么？长期以来，有关农业集约化的问题一直吸引着各领域的学者，但也困扰着他们。在这一更广泛的背景下，圣路易斯华盛顿大学的Tristram R. Kidder博士和Zhen Qin先生将在中国中部平原开展研究，探索农业集约化的过程及其与环境变化的关系。农业集约化的定义是单位土地生产产出的增加。本项目将提供埋藏农田的第一手实地资料，有助于检验历史文献中关于农业的观点，对农业集约化有新的认识；它还将利用保存完好的考古数据集，从具体地点、自下而上的角度对农业集约化作出理论贡献。在学术界之外，这个项目也有更广泛的影响。首先，它将通过招募当地人进行实地工作，包括取芯、测试挖掘和采样，为当地社区做出贡献。通过他们的参与，将对他们的历史和身份有更深的了解。其次，该项目将与当地研究所合作进行，这种合作将通过来自不同文化传统的中美研究人员之间的团队合作和相互学习来促进相互理解和信任。为了进一步了解农业集约化是如何实现的以及农业集约化的原因，基德尔博士、秦先生和他们在中国的合作者将对古代田野进行大规模挖掘，系统收集土壤样本，并对地质考古结果进行全面分析。此次发掘将在中国中部河南省内黄县的三阳庄遗址进行。在该遗址中发现了三层具有垄沟特征的古农田。基于这些被黄河洪水沉积物保存完好的独特遗迹，研究小组将通过考察耕作、施肥、灌溉等田间管理技术作为农业集约化的实施路径，探讨“如何”的问题；微观形貌和元素分析也将被部署。对于“为什么”的问题，将重建当地的古环境，并通过同位素分析和传统的地质考古分析，研究气候变化和黄河洪水等环境风险作为农业集约化的主要驱动因素之一。

Over the last 10,000 years, agriculture has gradually replaced hunting and gathering, and became the globally dominant food resource. Agricultural productivity provides a solid foundation for population growth, social complexity and the emergence of cities and states. However, there is a huge intellectual gap between our understanding of the earliest domestication and cultivation of limited crops and intensive agriculture practiced by early states. How was agriculture intensified over time? What resources were required to intensify food production? What is the driving force behind the processes of agricultural intensification? Questions concerning agricultural intensification have attracted but also puzzled scholars in various fields for a long time. Within this broader context, Dr. Tristram R. Kidder and Mr. Zhen Qin, of Washington University in St. Louis, will undertake research in the Central Plain of China to explore the process of agricultural intensification, defined as an increase in the productive output per unit of land, and its relationship with environmental change. This project will provide first-hand field data on buried agricultural fields and therefore be helpful for both testing ideas about agriculture put forth in historical written documents and gaining new comprehension of agricultural intensification; it will also make theoretical contribution to agricultural intensification from an site-specific, bottom-up perspective by use of well-preserved archaeological datasets. Beyond academia, this project also has broader impacts. Firstly, it will contribute to the local community by recruiting local people to do fieldwork, including coring, test excavation, and sampling. Through their participation, a deeper understanding of their history and identity will be gained. Secondly, this project will be carried out in collaboration with the local institute and this collaboration will promote mutual understanding and trust through the team working and reciprocal learning between U.S. and Chinese researchers who are from different cultural traditions.To obtain a further understanding of how agricultural intensification was achieved and why agriculture was intensified, Dr. Kidder, Mr. Qin and their collaborators in China will conduct a large-scale excavation of ancient fields, a systematic collection of soil samples, and a comprehensive analysis of geoarchaeological results. The excavation will be carried out at Sanyangzhuang site, Neihuang County, Henan Province in central China. In this site, three strata of ancient agricultural field with ridge-and-furrow features, have been found. Based on these unique relics well preserved by the Yellow River flood sediments, the research team will explore the question of "how" by examining the field management techniques, including plowing, manuring, and irrigation, as an implementation path of agricultural intensification; micromophology and elemental analysis also will be deployed. For the question of "why", local paleoenvironment will be reconstructed and environment-induced risks, such as climate changes and the Yellow River floods, will be investigated as one of major driving forces of agricultural intensification by means of isotopic analysis and conventional geoarchaeological analysis.