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资源。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，在我们对最早的有限作物驯化和种植的理解与早期各州实行的集约农业之间，存在着巨大的智力差距。随着时间的推移，农业是如何集约化的？需要哪些资源来加强粮食生产？农业集约化进程背后的驱动力是什么？长期以来，农业集约化问题一直是各领域学者关注和困惑的问题。在这一更广泛的背景下，圣路易斯华盛顿大学的特里斯特拉姆·R·基德博士和秦真先生将在中国的中原地区开展研究，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力的增加。该项目将提供埋藏在地下的农田的第一手实地数据，从而有助于检验历史书面文献中提出的农业思想，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。除了学术界，这个项目还有更广泛的影响。首先，它将通过招募当地人进行野外工作来为当地社区做出贡献，包括取芯、测试挖掘和取样。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，通过来自不同文化传统的美中研究人员的团队合作和互鉴，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农业集约化，基德博士、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综合分析。发掘将在河南省中国中部的内黄县三杨庄遗址进行。在该遗址中，发现了三层具有垄沟特征的古农业田地。基于黄河洪水沉积物保存完好的这些独特的遗迹，研究小组将通过研究耕作、施肥和灌溉等田间管理技术作为农业集约化的实施路径来探索如何的问题；还将开展微形态和元素分析。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，并将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力之一进行调查。

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.