Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Fit between Producers and Consumers in Traditional Society

哈佛大学的马修·利布曼博士和埃里克·约翰逊博士将研究一个正在扩张的国家的核心地区的生产与殖民地边界地区的消费之间的关系。最近的考古工作揭示了人类使用“外国制造”物品来塑造有意义的社会身份的多种方式。然而，这种对身份的关注往往会淡化生产和消费之间重要的经济相互依赖关系。研究人员将分析公元1750年至1900年间新泽西州贝壳珠制造中心的考古遗迹。在这些地方，欧美人生产贝壳珠，出口给大平原上的美洲原住民消费者。在美国不断扩大的州边界上的互动如何影响新泽西的工业化？是什么因素导致了向本土消费者制造和销售产品的成败？本土消费者如何使用泽西制造的珠子来实现他们自己的社会和政治目标？如今，美国制造业很大程度上依赖于国外消费者的口味。推动工业的力量——以及工人的成功或斗争——往往与遥远的政治和文化因素联系在一起，超出了生产者的直接理解。通过调查国家政策对早期美国实业家和土著民族财富的影响，这项研究为经济、国家政策和国际事务之间的关系提供了关键的见解。本项目所进行的考古发掘工作将为培养学生的科学考古方法提供机会。研究人员将通过当地历史学会和新泽西州立博物馆与社区利益相关者进行公开接触，努力展示美国当地工业如何与大平原上的土著文化、经济和冲突紧密联系在一起。研究人员将研究生产和消费之间随时间的变化，以确定影响美国工业兴衰的因素。贝壳珠在北美已经生产了数千年，但在美国独立战争期间，新泽西州北部的爱尔兰和荷兰定居者成为毛皮贸易珠的主要出口商。结合对现有博物馆藏品的分析，在新泽西的挖掘将以“原始工业”和“工业”贝壳珠制造地点为目标，以碎片、废物、贝壳坯、工具和成品珠子的形式收集考古数据。这些将与历史账户、工厂分类账和贸易记录一起进行审查，以跟踪“工业化”的要素，如效率、技术、标准化和产出规模。考古、历史、人种学和肖像数据将用于追踪整个19世纪土著使用贝壳珠的广泛区域趋势。不同的部落、性别和年龄是如何佩戴珠子的？在什么情况下，为了什么目的？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知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Dr. Matthew Liebmann and Eric Johnson of Harvard University will investigate the relationship between production in the core of an expanding state and consumption on its colonial borders. Recent work in archaeology reveals the many ways that humans use "foreign-made" objects to forge meaningful social identities. Yet this focus on identity tends to downplay important economic interdependencies between production and consumption. Researchers will analyze the archaeological remains of shell bead manufacturing centers New Jersey between 1750 and 1900 CE. At these sites, Euro-Americans produced shell beads for export to Native American consumers on the Great Plains. How did interactions on the borders of an expanding American state impact industrialization in New Jersey? What factors led to the successes and failures of making and selling products to indigenous consumers? And how did Native consumers use Jersey-made beads to achieve their own social and political goals? Today, much of the American manufacturing sector relies on the tastes of consumers who live outside the country's boundaries. The forces that drive industry - and the success or struggles of workers - are often tied to distant political and cultural factors beyond the immediate understanding of producers. By investigating the effects of state policies on the fortunes of both early American industrialists and Native nations, this research offers key insights into the relationship between the economy, state policy, and international affairs. The archaeological excavations conducted by this project will provide opportunities for student training in scientific methods of archaeology. Researchers will engage publically with community stakeholders through local historical societies and the New Jersey State Museum in an effort to show how a local American industry was intimately tied to indigenous cultures, economies, and conflicts on the Great Plains.Researchers will examine changes over time between production and consumption in order to determine the factors that influenced the rise and fall of an American industry. Shell beads have been made in North America for thousands of years, but by the American Revolution, Irish and Dutch settlers in northern New Jersey became the major exporters of beads for the fur trade. Combined with analysis of existing museum collections, excavations in New Jersey will target "proto-industrial" and "industrial" shell bead manufacturing sites to gather archaeological data in the form of debris, waste, bead blanks, tools, and finished beads. These will be examined along with historical accounts, factory ledgers, and fur trade records to track elements of "industrialization" such as efficiencies, technologies, standardization, and scale of output. Archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and portraiture data will be used to track broad regional trends in Native uses of shell beads throughout the 19th century. How were beads worn by different tribes, genders, and ages? In what contexts, and to what end?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.