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Thomas Fenn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，以及这种贸易与该地区社会复杂性发展的关系。政治和生态的变化以及其他因素对连接不同社区的交流网络产生了影响。印度洋周围的不同行业推动了在这一区域和其他地区进行的贸易，它们必须适应连接贸易不同行为者的网络的变化，以适应它们的地理位置及其生产的性质和数量。通过对当地玻璃行业的研究，研究人员将研究这种行业如何应对从公元前一千年中叶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的崩溃，转而采用自动化程度更高、劳动密集度更低的替代方案之际，该项目将提供有关濒临灭绝的活动根源的新信息，并将为现代世界工业格局变化的后果提供新的见解。该项目将本科生和研究生在跨学科研究方面的研究和培养融为一体。这项研究的结果将为菲尔德博物馆今后的展览和教育活动提供信息，每年教育数十万名K-12儿童和100多万参观者。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民族志证据，收集用于玻璃制造的潜在原材料。将测定原材料的元素和同位素组成，并与收集的古代玻璃数据进行比较。假设每个玻璃生产中心都会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一个独特的元素和同位素特征，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.