Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Construction of Monumental Architecture

这个项目研究了社会复杂性的融合和出现的性质如何导致纪念碑和人工景观的创造。多学科的学者已经接近了社会复杂性的出现，特别是在早期的城市中心，作为一种现象，由过程和机构，纪念碑是建立显着的社会秩序的代表。考古学可以很好地研究早期城市中心产生的社会条件，并解释在社会组织、物质资源和剩余劳动力的流动性方面如何进行巨大的建设。杰出领袖的魅力权威或对传统的长期坚持在多大程度上塑造了世界上最早的城市日益人工化的景观？对于美国的土墩建造社会来说，土方工程的创造具有宗教和社会政治意义，作为在建造纪念碑的地方创造共同身份的一种手段。因此，他们的建设和组织的内部架构的能量提供了关键的见解，他们的社会环境。该项目将重点关注美国最大的前哥伦布仪式中心，通过研究该网站的中心区域内的纪念碑建设的性质和步伐。现有的解释网站的发展成为一个城市中心分为模型，强调快速或慢节奏的纪念性建设。快节奏模型声称，霸权权威是在一个高度分层的社会秩序中行使的网站，以指导纪念性的建设项目，而慢节奏模型描绘这样的纪念性建筑作为副产品的社区成核和聚合，进行了很长一段时间。借助加速质谱测年和贝叶斯统计模型，参考暴露的土壤环境，该项目将评估在现场广场和土墩建筑中采用的劳动力投资和建设策略。将对一个疑似广场的建筑群进行调查，该建筑群以前没有记录土方工程，以获取可确定年代的样本，并记录新的建筑形式。这样，土墩建筑作为现存社会秩序的一种表现形式的速度和性质将得到更有效的解释。因此，这个早期城市中心的物质历史可以在全球范围内对早期城市化和社会进行更大的叙述。这个奖项反映了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。

This project investigates how the nature of coalescence and emergence of social complexity results in the creation of monuments and artificial landscapes. Multidisciplinary scholars have approached the emergence of social complexity, particularly in early urban centers, as a phenomenon conditioned by process and agency, whereby monuments are built conspicuously as representations of the social order. Archaeology is well positioned to examine the social conditions that gave rise to early urban centers and explain how monumental construction was undertaken with respect to social organization, material resources, and mobility of surplus labor. To what extent does the charismatic authority of prominent leaders or longstanding adherence to tradition shape the increasingly artificial landscapes of the world’s earliest cities and how? For US moundbuilding societies the creation of earthworks held both religious and socio-political significance, as a means of creating a common identity at the place where monuments were built. As such, the energetics of their construction and organization of their internal architectures provide critical insights into their social environments. This project will focus on the largest US Pre-Columbian ceremonial center, by examining the nature and pace of monumental earthwork construction within the site’s central precinct. Existing interpretations of the site’s development into an urban center are divided between models that emphasize rapid or slow-paced monumental construction. Rapid pace models claim that hegemonic authority was exercised within a highly stratified social order at the site to direct monumental construction projects, while slower pace models portray such monumental architectures as byproducts of community nucleation and aggregation that carried over extended time periods. With the aid of accelerated mass spectrometry dating and Bayesian statistical models that reference exposed earthwork contexts, this project will assess what labor investments and construction strategies were employed for plaza and mound building at the site. Excavations into a suspected plaza compound with previously undocumented earthworks will be undertaken to acquire datable samples and record new forms of architecture. In this way, the pace and nature of moundbuilding as an expression of the existing social order will be more effectively interpreted. Consequently, the material history of this early urban center can be framed within the larger narratives about incipient urbanism and society at a global scale.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.