Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Botanical Insights into Social Complexity

关于粮食在城市可持续性中的作用的问题与过度拥挤和获得资源的机会不同等现代问题有关。对最早的城市中心的考古研究特别适合于揭示有助于人口定居点持续存在或衰落的生存策略，因为古代遗址提供了研究与重大政治和社会变革有关的食物相关活动变化的时间的案例研究。在这一更广泛的背景下，本项目将利用植物遗骸调查家庭一级社会关系的时间变化。加州大学圣巴巴拉分校（UCSB）的马洛里Melton和Amber VanDerwarker将研究两个太平洋海岸遗址的古代植物遗骸，时间分别为公元前900-500年和公元前500- 100年，这为利用食物来历时评估国家形成和人口聚集增加中的家庭间社会差异提供了难得的机会。区域研究将受益于并努力促进文化遗产知识，其成果将在当地博物馆展出。项目成员还将与当地居民合作，编写一本小册子，向学童和教师宣传项目成果。该项目制作的挖掘地图对于提高当地意识和促进遗址管理至关重要，因为这两个遗址都被芭蕉覆盖。这些地图将分发给当地官员和机构，并将在UCSB综合生存实验室（ISL）网站上播放一段延时视频。VanDerwarker博士和马洛里梅尔顿将对家庭和公共存款中的植物遗骸进行鉴定研究，以揭示美洲最早的两个城市中心的社会多样性和政治经济的性质。研究将开始使用一个地区博物馆的收藏品，在那里，共同主要研究者将收集文物残留物和牙垢样本，用于淀粉粒和植硅石鉴定。本科生将参与烧焦的植物遗骸和微观淀粉粒和植硅体的鉴定，以及大规模地图的制作，这将使每个城市定居点的布局栩栩如生。一年生植物烧焦遗骸的放射性碳年代测定将提供必要的时间精确性，以便根据定居点的占领阶段（例如，形成、维持、下降）。结合多种方法，本研究将阐明占领两个不同规模的城市中心期间的日常生计活动，提供有助于其数百年持久性的策略的见解。研究小组将调查食物在评估每个研究地点家庭之间差异的使用情况，这可能会产生一种强大的方法来检测社会多样性，这将有助于在住宅在其分组中不明显的情况下识别社区。该项目将有效提高对食品活动和城市可持续性之间关系的理解，同时也为学生培训和国际合作创造创新机会。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Questions regarding the role of food in urban sustainability are relevant to modern problems of overcrowding and differential access to resources. Archaeological study of the earliest urban centers is particularly well-suited to revealing subsistence strategies that contribute to the persistence or decline of populous settlements because ancient sites provide case studies for examining the timing of changes in food-related activities in relation to major political and social transformations. Within this broader context, this project will use plant remains to investigate temporal changes in social relationships at the household level. Mallory Melton and Amber VanDerwarker of the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) will study ancient plant remains from two Pacific coast sites dated 900-500 BCE and 500-BCE-100CE, providing a rare opportunity to use food to diachronically evaluate inter-household social differences amid state formation and increasing population aggregation. Regional research will benefit from and work to foster cultural heritage knowledge with results being featured in an exhibit at a local museum. Project members will also work with local residents to create a pamphlet designed to communicate project results to school children and teachers. Excavation maps produced by this project are essential to raising local awareness and fostering site stewardship as both sites are covered by plantains. They will be distributed to local officials and institutions, and a time-lapse video of the maps will be hosted on the UCSB Integrative Subsistence Laboratory (ISL) website. Dr. VanDerwarker and Mallory Melton will undertake research on the identification of plant remains in household and public deposits to reveal the nature of social diversity and political economy in two of the earliest urban centers in the Americas. Research will begin with the use of a collection in a regional museum, where the co-PI will collect artifact residue and dental calculus samples for starch grain and phytolith identification. Undergraduate students will be involved in the identification of charred plant remains and microscopic starch grains and phytoliths, and the production of large-scale maps that will bring the layout of each urban settlement to life. Radiocarbon dates on charred remains of annual plants will provide the chronological precision necessary to organize subsistence strategies according to settlement occupation phase (e.g., formation, maintenance, decline). Integrating multiple methods, this study will illuminate daily subsistence activities during the occupation of two urban centers of different scale, providing insights into strategies that contributed to their centuries-long persistence. The team will investigate the use of food in evaluating differences among households at each study site, potentially producing a powerful methodology for detecting social diversity that would contribute to the identification of neighborhoods in cases where residences are not apparent in their groupings. The project will productively enhance understanding of the relationship between food activities and urban sustainability while also creating innovative opportunities for student training and international collaboration.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.