Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Role of Status in the Maintenance of Complex Society

研究人员希望更好地理解大型社区的出现和发展背后的动力，这些社区作为将地区人口结合成综合社会的中心。早在8000年前，这样的社区就在世界上的许多地方首次出现，并成为当今世界上大多数人口生活的具有非常复杂组织模式的更大规模社会的基础。集中在这些早期中心的活动种类因地区而异。在某些情况下，增加一个地区家庭之间的工艺专业化和经济相互依存似乎至关重要。在其他情况下，宗教信仰和仪式活动是最重要的。在其他情况下，冲突和军事防御和进攻似乎起了主要作用。在不同的组合中，这些和其他社会关系经常创造出社会组织所围绕的几种强烈的不平等。特定的模式是如何在不同的地方被强调的，以及它们是如何导致不同程度和种类的社会不平等的，我们还没有很好地理解。对于那些日益扩大的社会不平等并非基于生产活动、财富和人民生活水平差异的情况，尤其如此。这个项目将探讨在冲突相对激烈的情况下，战争中的领导人获得相当大的威望和更普遍的权威，并作为更大社区的社会重心的可能性。正如研究人员经常设想的那样，这样的发展道路导致这些领导人加强经济控制和财富积累，从而使他们能够扩大他们的社会和政治权力。公元前2000年左右，乌拉尔南部地区Sintashta-Petrovka社会的迅速出现为研究这一推理提供了一个绝佳的机会。精心设计的战士坟墓与小型、紧凑、戒备森严的定居点有关，表明了战争领袖的社会重要性，但人们对他们显然领导的社区的性质和组织知之甚少。研究了在小的设防区域内密集的住宅，但居住的居民数量非常少，可能只占这些国家区域人口的一部分。先前的研究未能发现在设防中心周围地区存在其他内陆社区的证据。但很少有人研究的考古遗迹，就在防御中心的城墙外，可能代表了这些社区的一个重要的额外组成部分。这项研究将以这些遗迹为目标，重建它们所代表的活动、地位和生活水平，并将它们与防御工事内的人进行比较。这将揭示战争领导人是否像理论上那样，承担了更广泛的社会和经济角色，享有声望并变得富有，或者是否有一个更平等的基础来锚定社会。

Researchers want to understand better the dynamics behind the emergence and development of large communities that have served as centers binding the populations of regions into integrated societies. Such communities first emerged as much as 8,000 years ago in many parts of the world and served as the foundation for the much larger-scale societies with very complex patterns of organization in which the majority of the world's population lives today. The kinds of activities that were concentrated in these early centers varied considerably from one region to another. In some instances increasing craft specialization and economic interdependence between households across a region seem crucial. In other instances religious beliefs and ritual activities were of the utmost importance. And in still other cases, conflict and military defense and offense appear to have played a principal role. In varying combinations, these and other social relationships often created strong inequalities of several kinds around which societies were organized. Just how particular patterns came to be emphasized in different places and how they led to varying degrees and kinds of social inequalities are not well understood. This is especially true of cases in which growing social inequalities were not grounded in differences in productive activities, wealth, and standards of living among the population.This project will pursue the possibility that in situations of relatively intense conflict, leaders in warfare acquire considerable prestige and more general authority and serve as the social centers of gravity for larger communities. As most often envisioned by researchers, such a path of development leads to increasing economic control and accumulation of wealth by these leaders, which enables them to broaden their social and political power. A prime opportunity to investigate this line of reasoning is provided by the rapid emergence of Sintashta-Petrovka societies of the southern Urals around 2000 BC. Elaborate warrior graves associated with small, compact, heavily fortified settlements indicate the social importance of war leaders, but little is known of the nature and organization of the communities they apparently led. Tightly-packed residences within small fortified areas have been studied, but held remarkably small numbers of inhabitants, probably representing only a portion of the regional populations of these polities. Previous research has failed to find much evidence of other hinterland communities in the regions around the fortified centers. But little-studied archaeological remains immediately outside the walls of the fortified centers may represent an important additional component of these communities. This research will target those remains and reconstruct the activities, statuses, and standards of living they represent and compare them to those of the people inside the fortifications. This will reveal whether the war leaders, as theorized, took on broader social and economic roles and a prestigious and became wealthy or whether a more egalitarian foundation anchored the society.