Reconstruction of Manufacturing Patterns through Elemental and Isotopic Characterization of Raw Materials

在国家科学基金会的资助下，菲尔德博物馆的Laure Dussubieux博士，圣劳伦斯大学的Shinu Abraham博士和加州州立理工大学波莫纳分校的托马斯芬博士将进行跨学科研究，以了解南亚和印度洋周围的古代贸易和交流，以及该贸易与该地区社会复杂性发展的关系。政治和生态变化以及其他因素对连接不同社区的交换网络产生影响。印度洋周围的不同行业推动了该地区及其他地区的贸易，它们必须在其位置、生产性质和数量方面进行调整，以适应连接不同贸易参与者的网络的变化。 通过对当地玻璃行业的研究，研究人员将研究这样一个行业如何应对从公元前一千年中期到中世纪晚期该地区贸易模式的变化。在印度目睹其传统玻璃工业崩溃，转而采用自动化程度更高、劳动密集度更低的替代品之际，该项目将提供有关濒临灭绝的活动根源的新信息，并将提供有关现代世界工业格局变化后果的新见解。该项目整合了跨学科研究的本科生和研究生的研究和培训。这项研究的结果将为菲尔德博物馆未来的展览和教育活动提供信息，该博物馆每年教育数十万K-12儿童和100多万游客。这项合作工作将包括根据土壤的地质性质和该地区玻璃制造的考古或人种学证据收集用于玻璃制造的潜在原材料。原材料的元素和同位素组成将被确定，并与古代玻璃收集的数据进行比较。假设每个玻璃生产中心都从附近的来源采购原材料，印度地质的多样性为每个生产中心提供了独特的元素和同位素特征，这些特征在原材料和成品玻璃中是相同的。

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Laure Dussubieux of The Field Museum, Shinu Abraham of Saint Lawrence University, and Thomas Fenn of California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, will undertake interdisciplinary research to understand ancient trade and exchange in South Asia and around the Indian Ocean as well as the relationship of that trade to the development of social complexity in the region. Political and ecological changes as well as other factors have an influence on the exchange networks connecting different communities. The different industries around the Indian Ocean, which fueled the trade conducted in this region and beyond, had to adapt in terms of their location and the nature and volume of their production, to shifts in the networks connecting the different actors of the trade. Through the study of the local glass industry, researchers will study how such an industry responded to changes in trade patterns around the region from around the mid-first millennium BCE to the late Medieval Period. At a time when India is witnessing the collapse of its traditional glass industry in favor of a more automated and less labor-intensive alternative, this project will provide new information about the roots of an activity on the brink of extinction and will provide new insights regarding the consequences of changing industrial landscapes in the modern world. This project integrates research and training of undergraduate and graduate students in interdisciplinary research. Results of this study will inform future exhibits and education activities at the Field Museum which educate hundreds of thousands of K-12 children and more than a million of visitors annually. This collaborative effort will include the collection of potential raw materials used for glass manufacturing based on the geological nature of the soils and the archaeological or ethnographical evidence of glass manufacturing in the area. Elemental and isotopic composition of the raw material will be determined and compared to data collected for ancient glass. Assuming that each center of glass production would procure raw materials from a nearby source, the diversity of the geology of India provides the possibility of characterizing each production center with a unique elemental and isotopic signature that will be identical in the raw materials and the finished glass.