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

在过去的10，000年里，农业逐渐取代狩猎和采集，成为全球主要的食物来源。农业生产力为人口增长、社会复杂性以及城市和州的出现提供了坚实的基础。然而，我们对最早驯化和种植有限作物的理解与早期国家实行的集约农业之间存在巨大的知识差距。随着时间的推移，农业是如何得到加强的？加强粮食生产需要哪些资源？农业集约化进程背后的驱动力是什么？农业集约化问题长期以来一直是困扰各领域学者的一个难题。在这个更广泛的背景下，崔斯特瑞姆博士。基德尔和圣路易斯华盛顿大学的秦振将在中国中原地区进行研究，探索农业集约化的过程，即单位土地产量的增加，及其与环境变化的关系。该项目将提供关于埋藏农田的第一手实地数据，因此有助于检验历史书面文件中提出的农业思想，并获得对农业集约化的新理解;它还将利用保存完好的考古数据集，从特定地点，自下而上的角度为农业集约化做出理论贡献。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、试挖和取样，为当地社区做出贡献。通过他们的参与，将更深入地了解他们的历史和身份。第二，本项目将与当地研究所合作开展，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，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，以及为什么要集约化农业，基德尔博士，秦先生和他们在中国的合作者将对古田野进行大规模的挖掘，系统地收集土壤样品，并对地质考古结果进行综合分析。发掘工作将在中国中部河南省内黄县三杨庄遗址进行。在该遗址中，发现了三个具有垄沟特征的古农田地层，基于这些被黄河洪水沉积物保存完好的独特遗迹，研究团队将通过考察农田管理技术（包括耕作、施肥和灌溉）作为农业集约化的实施路径，探索“如何”的问题，并将开展微观形态学和元素分析。对于“为什么”的问题，将通过同位素分析和常规地质考古分析，重建当地的古环境，探讨气候变化和黄河洪水等环境诱发风险是农业集约化的主要驱动力之一。

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.