Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Factors Influencing the Development of Monumental Architecture

土墩、金字塔、坟墓和雕像等大型、精致的纪念性建筑的建造是社会复杂社会出现的重要因素，因为它们被视为有组织的宗教、社会分层、社会群体之间的竞争以及群体内部大规模合作的兴起的考古证据。然而，人们对这些过程与环境和生态因素的关系知之甚少，这限制了对社会进化的理解。该项目旨在深入了解纪念碑建筑出现背后的社会生态因素。这些过程将通过对以其精致的宗教纪念碑建筑而闻名的拉帕努伊岛（复活节岛）的考古和环境调查进行调查。拉帕努伊的著名古迹面临着因侵蚀、风暴潮和开发而被摧毁的巨大风险。这项研究将创建高分辨率 3D 模型，用作数字文档和保存工具，以帮助保护拉帕努伊的古迹遗址。这是一个迫切的需求，也是一个通过与拉帕努伊考古学家和利益相关者持续合作伙伴关系来实现的目标。该项目还涉及多项教育、培训和外展活动，包括对美国和拉帕努伊学生进行考古调查和地理空间现场技术培训、对 Co-PI DiNapoli 进行培训和完成论文，以及在学术和公共媒体上传播成果。这些举措将直接有助于加强合作关系、对代表性不足群体的培训以及公众参与考古科学。该项目将使用拉帕努伊岛作为案例研究，测试进化生态学模型（称为昂贵信号理论）对纪念碑建造起源的预测。鉴于拉帕努伊面积小、与世隔绝和宗教古迹众多，它为研究古迹建筑的进化生态学提供了一个理想的模型系统。中心假设是，除了众所周知的宗教角色之外，纪念碑在拉帕努伊社会中还起到显着展示（即昂贵的信号）社区控制和捍卫其有限关键资源的竞争能力的作用，从而导致群体之间有限的暴力冲突或互动。这一假设将通过考古和环境调查来检验：1）建造纪念碑的能源成本； 2）他们在景观中的可见度； 3) 建造纪念碑的成本、其知名度和有争议的生存资源之间的关系； 4）史前社区之间的互动程度。这些目标将通过一系列地理空间现场技术、定量分析和地球化学采样来实现。所有数据和分析都将完全开放，这对于考古科学研究的可重复性至关重要。该项目有潜力通过阐明为什么合作、竞争和宗教如此频繁地表现为人类过去的纪念性建筑背后的社会和生态影响，来推进人类学理论和对社会变革的更广泛的理解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The construction of large and elaborate monumental architecture, such as mounds, pyramids, tombs, and statues, were important factors in the emergence of socially complex societies, as they are seen as archaeological evidence for the rise of organized religion, social stratification, competition between social groups, and large-scale cooperation within them. How these processes relate to environmental and ecological factors, however, is poorly understood and this limits understanding of societal evolution. This project seeks to shed insight into the socio-ecological factors underlying the emergence of monument construction.These processes will be investigated through archaeological and environmental investigations on the island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), famous for its elaborate religious monumental architecture. The famous monuments of Rapa Nui are at great risk of being destroyed by erosion, storm surges, and development. This research will result in the creation of high-resolution 3D models to be used as digital documentation and preservation tools to help conserve Rapa Nui's monument sites. This is an urgent need and a goal that will be achieved through an on-going collaborative partnership with Rapanui archaeologists and stakeholders. This project also involves several education, training, and outreach initiatives, including training of American and Rapanui students in archaeological survey and geospatial field techniques, training and dissertation completion for Co-PI DiNapoli, and dissemination of results in both academic and public media. These initiatives will directly contribute to enhancing collaborative relationships, training for underrepresented groups, and public engagement in archaeological science. This project will test predictions of an evolutionary ecology model known as costly-signaling theory for the origins of monument construction using Rapa Nui as a case study. Given Rapa Nui's small size, isolation, and plethora of religious monuments, it offers an ideal model system to investigate the evolutionary ecology of monument construction. The central hypothesis is that, in addition to their well-known religious roles, monuments functioned within Rapa Nui society as conspicuous displays (i.e., costly signals) of communities' competitive ability to control and defend their limited critical resources, which resulted in limited violent conflict or interaction between groups. This hypothesis will be tested through archaeological and environmental investigations of: 1) the energetic costs of building monuments; 2) their visibility on the landscape; 3) relationships between the costs of building monuments, their visibility, and contested subsistence resources; and 4) the degree of interaction between prehistoric communities. These objectives will be approached through a series of geospatial field techniques, quantitative analyses, and geochemical sampling. All data and analyses will be made fully open-access, which is crucial for reproducible research in archaeological science. This project has the potential to advance anthropological theory and a broader understanding of societal change by illuminating the social and ecological influences behind why cooperation, competition, and religiosity were so frequently manifested as monumental architecture in the human past.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.