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

大型而精致的纪念性建筑的建造，如土丘、金字塔、坟墓和雕像，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兴起、社会分层、社会群体之间的竞争和他们内部的大规模合作的考古证据。然而，人们对这些过程与环境和生态因素的关系知之甚少，这限制了人们对社会进化的理解。该项目旨在深入了解纪念碑建造背后的社会生态因素。这些过程将通过对以精致的宗教纪念性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被侵蚀、风暴潮和开发破坏的巨大风险。这项研究将创建高分辨率的3D模型，作为数字记录和保护工具，帮助保护拉帕努伊的纪念碑遗址。这是一项迫切的需要，也是将通过与拉帕努伊考古学家和利益攸关方持续合作伙伴关系来实现的目标。该项目还涉及若干教育、培训和宣传活动，包括对美国和拉帕努伊的学生进行考古调查和地理空间实地技术培训，为Co-Pi DiNapoli提供培训和完成论文，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、培训代表性不足的群体以及公众参与考古科学。这个项目将以拉帕努伊为例，测试一种名为代价信号理论的进化生态学模型对纪念碑建造起源的预测。鉴于拉帕努伊的规模小，与世隔绝，宗教纪念碑过多，它提供了一个理想的模型系统来研究纪念碑建造的进化生态。中心假设是，除了众所周知的宗教角色外，纪念碑在拉帕努伊社会中的作用是社区控制和捍卫其有限的关键资源的竞争能力的明显展示(即昂贵的信号)，这导致了有限的暴力冲突或群体之间的互动。这一假设将通过考古学和环境调查得到验证：1)建造纪念碑的能源成本；2)它们在景观上的可见度；3)建造纪念碑的成本、它们的可见度和有争议的生存资源之间的关系；以及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实地技术、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获取，这对考古科学中的可重复研究至关重要。这个项目有可能促进人类学理论和对社会变化的更广泛的理解，通过阐明为什么合作、竞争和宗教信仰在人类过去如此频繁地表现为纪念性建筑背后的社会和生态影响。该奖项反映了NSF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.