Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Effect Of Violence On Domestic Social Organization

即使在今天，当人们看到冲突地区的历史城市和文化遗产不断遭到破坏时，人们也会提出紧迫的问题，即人们如何在政治动荡时期坚持下去，政治暴力如何重塑生活，以及生存行为本身是一种物质现象，如何重塑我们对暴力的理解。考虑到这些紧迫的问题，博士候选人Tiffany Cain女士和宾夕法尼亚大学的Richard Leventhal博士研究了政治动荡和战争如何影响冲突地区的平民空间和日常生活。考古学作为一种分析框架，强调对遥远和最近的过去社会的物质文化的关注，并且特别适合于研究那些经常在文献记录中消失的人们的日常生活。研究人员的目标是提供一个框架，用于识别和解释通常与冲突无关的空间中的政治暴力的物质文化-特别是边缘化的平民定居点，而不是战场和军事基地。这项研究有助于更广泛的人类学理解的社会和物质过程的暴力冲突，重新集中在其分析的普通人的经验。 本论文项目位于墨西哥金塔纳罗奥的一个以社区为基础的研究计划，培训当地参与者的考古方法和研究设计以及历史保护规划和实施。该方案将考古学定位为社区可持续发展计划的一个关键组成部分，并通过密切的合作方案积极促进当地玛雅社区成员的非正式教育。该项目的调查主要涉及尤卡坦种姓战争或玛雅社会战争（1847-1901）产生的考古遗迹。种姓战争是一个广泛定义的玛雅工人阶级和西班牙克里奥尔上层阶级之间长达54年的暴力冲突。起义留下了许多被遗弃的城镇，庄园和牧场在曾经繁荣的边境景观，现在的中部金塔纳罗奥，墨西哥。冲突考古学是该学科中一个不断发展的主题领域，它将现代战争的材料分析带到了当今研究关注的前沿。尽管如此，普通城镇、定居点和平民空间并不经常成为暴力冲突考古调查的重点。这项研究采用了一种新的方法来调查战争的物质文化，评估（1）暴力冲突如何影响平民空间，以及（2）它对冲突地区日常生活的物质后果。调查人员通过探索通常与冲突相关的两个过程--防御结构的建设和区域放弃--如何实现来评估这些问题。通过研究在研究区域观察到的独特的定居点防御措施的遗迹，以及快速放弃和在废弃的定居点地区留下的高密度的具有文化价值的磨石（金属）之间的联系，研究人员将展示这些位于19世纪世纪尤卡坦半岛边境的边缘化社区是如何动员当地知识和共同实践，努力在面临大规模暴力冲突。

Even today, as one watches the ongoing destruction of historic cities and cultural heritage in conflict zones, there emerge pressing questions about how people persist through times of political upheaval, how political violence reshapes lives, and how the act of survival, in itself a material phenomenon, reshapes our understanding of violence. With these pressing concerns in mind, doctoral candidate, Ms. Tiffany Cain, and Dr. Richard Leventhal, both of the University of Pennsylvania, examine how political upheaval and war impact civilian spaces and everyday life in conflict zones. Archaeology, as a framework of analysis, emphasizes attention to the material culture of past societies distant and recent, and, lends itself particularly well to the study of the daily lives of people who often go unaccounted for in the documentary record. The researchers aim to provide a framework for recognizing and interpreting the material culture of political violence in spaces not typically associated with conflict - specifically, marginalized civilian settlements rather than battlefields and military forts. This research contributes to the broader anthropological understanding of the social and material processes of violent conflict by re-centering the experiences of ordinary people in its analysis. This dissertation project is situated within a community-based research initiative in Quintana Roo, Mexico that trains local participants in archaeological methods and research design as well as historic preservation planning and implementation. This program positions archaeology as a key component of a sustainable development plan for the community and actively contributes to the informal education of local Maya community members through close collaborative programming. This project's investigations are concerned primarily with archaeological remains generated by the Caste War of Yucatán, or Maya Social War (1847-1901). The Caste War was a fifty four-year episode of violent conflict between a broadly defined Maya working class and Spanish creole upper class. The insurrection left many abandoned towns, haciendas, and ranches in the once thriving frontier landscape of what is now central Quintana Roo, Mexico. Conflict archaeology, a growing thematic field within the discipline, has brought the material analysis of modern warfare to the forefront of today's research concerns. Still, ordinary towns, settlements, and civilian spaces have not often been the focus of archaeological investigations of violent conflict. This research takes a novel approach to investigating the material culture of war by evaluating (1) how violent conflict impacts civilian spaces and (2) what its material consequences are for daily life in conflict areas. The investigators assess these questions by exploring how two processes commonly associated with conflict - the construction of defensive structures and regional abandonment - materialize. By examining the remains of unique settlement fortification practices observed in the study area as well as the association between rapid abandonment and the high density of culturally-valued grinding stones (metates) left in deserted settlement areas, the researchers will demonstrate how these marginalized communities on the frontier of 19th century Yucatan mobilized local knowledge and common practice in an effort to collectively persist in the face of large-scale violent conflict.