Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Fuel Use in Traditional Societies

博士论文改进补助金：传统社会的燃料使用

• 批准号: 1832198
• 负责人: Alexia Smith
• 金额: $ 3.17万
• 依托单位: University of Connecticut
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-01 至 2020-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1832198&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Fuel

Dr. Alexia Smith and Lucas Proctor, of the University of Connecticut, will use archaeobotany to study how periods of social and political change affect peoples' energy use and fuel consumption. The collection and burning of wood, plant, or dung-based fuels is an essential daily task in the lives of people living in non-industrial societies, on par with the acquisition of food and shelter. Archaeologists have often noted that deforestation quickly follows the emergence of socio-economically complex societies and early states as a result of increased fuel needs. As populations grew and economic activities intensified, maintaining an adequate supply of fuel resources would have been increasingly important. This study examines how fuel economies change in response to a shift towards increasing socioeconomic and political complexity. While the developed world no longer relies on wood or dung fuels, many areas of the developing world still depend on access to forests and pasturelands to supply their daily energy needs. By exploring how people in early complex societies coped with fuel needs and fuel scarcity, this research will contribute to national and global discussions about the role of energy resources in sustainable economic development. An understanding of how socioeconomic factors affect how people collect and use fuel resources over long periods of time is essential to the development of forest conservation and environmental policies that can balance energy needs with the preservation of natural resources.The researchers use archaeobotany, the study of how plants and people interact, and geoarchaeological techniques, to identify and interpret fuel remains from three archaeological sites located in Northern Mesopotamia that date to the Late Chalcolithic (ca. 5300-3100 BC) and Assyrian (1300-611 BC) periods. The Late Chalcolithic in this region saw the emergence of the first socio-economically complex villages and cites, while the Assyrian period witnessed the development of the expansive Assyrian Empire, which fundamentally transformed land use patterns across the region and local administrative control of resources. Combining multiple lines of evidence from carbonized seed and wood remains, microscopic calcitic ash residues, and ethnoarchaeological data, will provide a rigorous evaluation of what fuel types were used at each site, whether different fuels or different wood species were preferred for certain tasks or by people of different statuses, and how fuel affected land use practices. The results of this project will contribute to three larger collaborative research projects that bring together international researchers and local archaeologists from Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria, and Turkey in order to study the early development of social complexity in an area of endangered cultural heritage.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

康涅狄格大学的Alexia Smith博士和Lucas普罗克特将利用考古植物学来研究社会和政治变革时期如何影响人们的能源使用和燃料消耗。收集和燃烧木材、植物或粪便燃料是生活在非工业社会的人们日常生活中必不可少的任务，就像获取食物和住所一样。考古学家经常注意到，随着社会经济复杂的社会和早期国家的出现，由于燃料需求的增加，森林砍伐很快就会出现。随着人口的增长和经济活动的加强，维持充足的燃料资源供应将变得越来越重要。这项研究探讨了燃料经济性如何变化，以应对社会经济和政治复杂性的增加。虽然发达国家不再依赖木材或粪便燃料，但发展中国家的许多地区仍然依赖森林和牧场来满足日常能源需求。通过探索早期复杂社会中的人们如何应对燃料需求和燃料短缺，这项研究将有助于国家和全球讨论能源资源在可持续经济发展中的作用。了解社会经济因素如何影响人们如何在很长一段时间内收集和使用燃料资源，对于制定森林保护和环境政策至关重要，这些政策可以平衡能源需求与自然资源保护。研究人员使用考古植物学，研究植物和人类如何相互作用，以及地质考古技术，从位于北方美索不达米亚的三个考古遗址中识别和解释燃料遗骸，这些遗址可以追溯到铜石时代晚期（约1000年）。5300-3100 BC）和亚述（1300-611 BC）时期。该地区的铜器时代晚期出现了第一个社会经济复杂的村庄和城市，而亚述时期见证了扩张的亚述帝国的发展，这从根本上改变了整个地区的土地使用模式和当地对资源的行政控制。结合多线的证据，从种子和木材仍然是，微观方解石灰残留物，和人种考古学数据，将提供一个严格的评估，在每个站点使用的燃料类型，是否不同的燃料或不同的木材品种是首选的某些任务或不同的地位的人，以及燃料如何影响土地利用的做法。该项目的成果将有助于三个更大的合作研究项目，这些项目汇集了来自伊拉克库尔德斯坦，叙利亚，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过利用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。