Collaborative Research: The Role Of Climate In Agricultural Intensification And Settlement Trends

合作研究：气候在农业集约化和定居趋势中的作用

• 批准号: 2050427
• 负责人: Amber VanDerwarker
• 金额: $ 5.97万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2050427&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Role; Climate; Agricultural

The investigators will examine the cooperative relationships among farmers and government institutions that enabled the development of about 150 sq km of prehistoric agricultural raised fields. This occurred during a period of peak population density and complexity with settlements established around monumental earthen constructions, including temples and ballcourts that drew people together for religious ceremony. To feed this population, local groups pooled their labor to convert natural wetlands into highly productive raised fields by digging a network of drainage canals and piling the fertile soils onto raised planting platforms. The whole system eventually failed. Monumental constructions ceased, raised fields were no longer maintained, and people either migrated elsewhere or disbanded to live in smaller, self-sustained farmsteads. These types of collective arrangements remain imperative today as government agricultural subsidies and support programs, as well as farmer co-ops, have had varied successes and failures. The social and environmental conditions of agriculture continuously change due to climatic variability, erosion, soil fertility losses, and the willingness of individual farmers to cooperate both with each other and government institutions. These uncertainties, which have plagued all agricultural societies since the earliest domesticates, cannot be easily projected into the future, so we turn to the long-term approach of archaeology. The region of study presents the complete cycle from intensification of agricultural infrastructure to its ultimate failure.The project focuses on a case study where detailed satellite and aerial remote sensing has identified remains of ancient agricultural field systems. Coring and trenching in the raised fields will reveal construction techniques and duration of use with geochemical analysis to assess soil fertility. Samples from fields will be used to date their construction and abandonment, and to determine what crops were grown in these fields through macro- and micro-botanical analysis. These data will be compared with that collected from survey and excavations as a means to reconstruct settlement history relative to raised field construction. Excavations will target households of different statuses to understand how wealth and power relationships changed over time. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on lagoon cores will model how the climate changed from the beginning to the end of this period of agricultural intensification. Together, these data will present a picture of the social, political, religious, and environmental factors that fostered an era of cooperation that led to the development of an intensive agricultural system and levels of monumentality not seen before in this region. Perhaps more importantly, the project will uncover the reasons why such collective action ceased. Regardless of the differences in scale and technology, this case shares many of the same social, political, and environmental concerns with our modern farming systems.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.

调查人员将审查农民和政府机构之间的合作关系，正是这些合作关系使大约150平方公里的史前农业耕作田地得以开发。这发生在人口密度和复杂性最高的时期，人们在不朽的土制建筑周围建立定居点，包括寺庙和舞厅，这些建筑将人们聚集在一起举行宗教仪式。为了养活这些人口，当地团体汇集了他们的劳动力，通过挖掘排水渠网络，将肥沃的土壤堆积在隆起的种植平台上，将自然湿地转化为高产的隆起田地。整个系统最终都失败了。纪念性建筑停止了，隆起的田地不再得到维护，人们要么迁移到其他地方，要么被解散，住在更小、自给自足的农庄里。这些类型的集体安排在今天仍然势在必行，因为政府的农业补贴和支持项目，以及农民合作社，已经取得了各种成功和失败。由于气候多变、侵蚀、土壤肥力流失以及个体农民愿意相互合作和与政府机构合作，农业的社会和环境条件不断变化。这些不确定性自最早的人类驯化以来一直困扰着所有的农业社会，不容易预测到未来，所以我们转向考古学的长期方法。该研究领域呈现了从农业基础设施集约化到最终失败的完整周期。该项目侧重于一个案例研究，在该案例研究中，详细的卫星和航空遥感发现了古代农田系统的遗迹。在隆起的田地中进行取芯和挖沟将揭示施工技术和使用时间，并通过地球化学分析来评估土壤肥力。来自田野的样本将被用来确定它们的建造和废弃的日期，并通过宏观和微观植物学分析来确定这些田地种植了什么作物。这些数据将与调查和挖掘收集的数据进行比较，作为重建相对于凸起的场地建设的沉降史的手段。挖掘将针对不同地位的家庭，以了解财富和权力关系是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。基于泻湖岩心的古环境重建将模拟从这一农业集约化时期开始到结束时气候是如何变化的。总而言之，这些数据将呈现出一幅社会、政治、宗教和环境因素的图景，这些因素孕育了一个合作时代，导致了该地区前所未有的集约农业系统和纪念性建筑的发展。也许更重要的是，该项目将揭示这种集体行动停止的原因。不管规模和技术有何不同，这起案件与我们的现代农业系统有着许多相同的社会、政治和环境问题。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。