Processes Underlying the Rise of Social Complexity

该项目的目标是为全球城市化研究做出贡献，旨在了解哪些社会政治策略可以促进或破坏社会稳定和城市弹性。这个项目探讨了不同的社会政治策略，首先是建立，然后在早期的城市中心保持社会凝聚力。随着城市主义学者试图找到方法来应用从考古研究中获得的知识，越来越清楚的是，成功的城市主义不仅包括健全的环境规划和城市食品生产，而且还包括明智的社会政治操纵和稳定的社会组织形式。这些社会政治策略和由此产生的活动在城市、布局和公共空间上留下了印记。该项目将承担方法上的挑战，即通过调查在城市公共空间和广场上发生的活动，调查如何从考古学上确定不同的社会政治策略，并评估更多的公众如何从这些空间和活动中受益或被疏远。这项研究将包括对一个城市的纪念碑区域进行地球物理调查，这个城市最初繁荣，但后来基本上被遗弃了。该团队将利用地球物理调查结果来指导铲测试和有针对性的挖掘，以系统地收集广场地板样本进行化学分析，并收集相关的文物和墓葬进行考古研究。通过拟议的挖掘和分析，研究小组将测试广场是否曾作为市场交换、工艺品生产、公共食品加工和宴会、公共葬礼和公共仪式活动的场所。这些过程在考古记录中留下了独特的人工制品和化学特征。该奖项的目的是调查在广场上发生的活动，并测试以前的调查结果，这些调查结果表明，随着城市领导层转向更企业化的治理形式，这样一个公共纪念区的建设和扩建发生了。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 goal of this project is to contribute to global urbanism studies aimed at understanding what sociopolitical strategies can foster or undermine societal stability and urban resilience. This project explores the different sociopolitical strategies used, first to establish and then maintain social cohesion in an early urban center. As urbanism scholars seek to find ways to apply the knowledge gained from archaeological research, it is becoming clear that successful urbanism not only incorporates sound environmental planning and urban food production, but also sage sociopolitical maneuvering and stable forms of social organization. These sociopolitical strategies and the activities that result from them leave their mark on cities, their layouts, and their public spaces. This project will undertake the methodological challenge of investigating how different sociopolitical strategies can be identified archaeologically by investigating the activities that took place in urban public spaces, plazas, and assess how the greater public benefited or were alienated from these spaces and the activities in them. The research will include a geophysical survey of a monumental area at a city that first flourished but then was largely abandoned. The team will use the geophysical survey results to guide shovel testing and targeted excavations to systematically collect plaza floor samples for chemical analysis and associated artifacts and burials for archaeological study. Through the proposed excavations and analyses the research team will test whether the plazas served as areas for market exchange, craft production, public food processing and feasting, communal burial, and public ritual activities. These processes leave distinctive artifact and chemical signatures in the archaeological record. The goal will be to investigate the activities that took place in the plazas and test previous findings that suggest that construction and expansion of such a public monumental area occurred as the city’s leadership shifted towards a more corporate form of governance.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.