Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Regional Influence on Social Network Development

乔治亚大学的Jacob Lulewicz将研究社会转型的过程，包括社会政治等级和社会经济不平等的出现，是如何由社会网络的规模和结构塑造的。以前关于组织复杂机构发展的学术侧重于通过确定特定时刻的特定组织特征来定义从一种类型的社会政治战略到另一种类型的社会政治战略的变化。然而，这些关键的转变内在地嵌入了更广泛的历史和关系背景中，并通过新的和现有的社会、政治和经济网络来实施。考古学非常适合于阐明社会网络和社会变化之间的关系，它侧重于制度的深刻历史根源，并捕捉社会政治发展的历史和地理细微差别。社交网络通过限制和提供信息传播、促进社会运动以及采用或拒绝想法和创新的手段，使社会变化具有背景意义。这项研究将在美国东南部的阿巴拉契亚南部地区进行，大约在公元1000年，那里的政治领导层变得集中，通过农业生产的大规模集约化形成了大规模的政治经济，社会和经济不平等变得根深蒂固，参与泛区域仪式机构的情况激增。将考察两个互补分析尺度上的社会网络：1)基于非正式和频繁互动的本地网络，以及2)基于政治归属和对宗教和其他跨领域机构的参与的泛区域网络。将对每个网络进行询问，以更好地了解它们如何构建新组织战略的出现。具体重点将放在当今佐治亚州西北部和田纳西州东部地区，在这些地区，社会政治变化的特点和暂时性遵循不同的发展轨迹。研究人员将构建阿巴拉契亚南部的网络史，以比较佐治亚州西北部和田纳西州东部地区不同的社会政治轨迹。阿巴拉契亚南部社会网络变化的规模、结构和节奏将通过(A)建立一个区域综合贝叶斯放射性碳测年计划，(B)建立一个风格和技术陶瓷属性的区域数据库，以及(C)通过分析贝壳峡谷图案和殡葬实践来评估政治-宗教肖像的区域模式。

Jacob Lulewicz from the University of Georgia will study how processes of societal transformation, including the emergence of sociopolitical hierarchies and socioeconomic inequalities, are shaped by the scale and structure of social networks. Previous scholarship on the development of organizationally complex institutions has focused on defining changes from one type of sociopolitical strategy to another through the identification of particular organizational traits at particular moments in time. However, these critical transformations are inherently embedded in broader historical and relational contexts, and are enacted through new and existing social, political, and economic networks. Archaeology is well suited to elucidating the relationships between social networks and societal change by focusing on the deep historical roots of institutions and capturing the historical and geographic nuances of sociopolitical development. Social networks contextualize societal change by both constraining and providing the means through which information is spread, social movements are facilitated, and ideas and innovations are adopted or rejected. The research will be conducted in the Southern Appalachian region of the Southeastern United States, where at ca. A.D. 1000, political leadership became centralized, large-scale political economies were formed through the mass intensification of agricultural production, social and economic inequalities became engrained, and participation in pan-regional ritual institutions proliferated.Social networks at two complementary scales of analysis will be examined: 1) local networks, based on informal and frequent interactions, and 2) panregional networks, based on political affiliation and participation in religious and other cross-cutting institutions. Each network will be interrogated to better understand how they structured the emergence of new organizational strategies. Specific focus will be on the areas of modern day northwestern Georgia and eastern Tennessee where the characteristics and temporality of sociopolitical change followed distinct developmental trajectories. The researchers will construct network histories of Southern Appalachia to compare the differing sociopolitical trajectories of the northwestern Georgia and eastern Tennessee regions. The scale, structure, and tempo of changes to social networks across Southern Appalachia will be elucidated through (a) the construction of a regionally-integrated Bayesian radiocarbon dating program, (b) the construction of a regional database of stylistic and technological ceramic attributes, and (c) the assessment of regional patterning of politico-religious iconography through the analysis of shell gorget motifs and mortuary practices.