Processes Influencing Stabilization in the Formation of States

国家稳定和持久形成的一个关键因素是其正式领土边界以外的实体承认其主权并使其合法化。这个项目考虑的是选择那些将国家权威延续到政治边界之外的个人子群的社会过程。为了了解国家和帝国的起源，最好是研究一个具有动态和区域互联景观的大都市中心。位于当时最大和最有影响力的城市之一的中心的公民行政综合体的挖掘，考察了国家权威通过仪式化行为积聚、具体化和体现的关键节点。作为一个位于主要遗产地仪式中心的项目，该项目在学者、学生和更广泛的公众之间建立了国家和国际伙伴关系，以支持考古管理的典范。该项目通过吸纳和培训来自14个机构的45名研究生和本科生，促进了科学队伍的发展，并扩大了代表人数不足的群体对科学的参与。此外，该项目通过在三种语言的网站上传播项目成果，提高了公众的科学素养和对科学方法的理解。研究人员计划挖掘一个精英行政建筑群，询问是否有证据表明，它是一个复杂的地区性仪式经济的中心，使国家权威自然化并永久化，以及外国实体在国家权威的发展中扮演了什么角色。这个主要的大都市中心的社会政治、意识形态和经济支撑在整个地区都产生了反响，包括对遥远地区的强大政治和军事监督。三个现场季节和实验室分析将针对已知外国存在的活动领域，以查明有助于国家权威归化和永久存在的管家和做法。分析技术包括对外地陶瓷和壁画碎片的实验室分析(根据原材料、生产技术、图像元素、生产者的社会身份及其交换、使用和终止的方式来构建其社会生活)、放射性碳测年、骨学/植物学分析和对生态产物(人、动物和其他古植物遗骸)的同位素分析；以及骨学和化学分析，以重建物品和人员在仪式经济中的流动。该项目对新的初步发掘数据的贡献，在关于该遗址在创建泛区域网络方面主要是主导力量还是合作力量的长期辩论中，提供了关键的补充信息。这项研究不仅形成了对城市中央行政国内政治和地区影响的科学理解，而且从根本上为邻近和远方政治的经济、政治和社会发展提供了理论依据。这一奖项反映了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。

One factor critical to stable and enduring formation of states is the recognition and legitimation of their sovereignty by entities outside their formal territorial frontiers. This project considers the social processes that select the subgroup of individuals who perpetuate the state’s authority beyond its political boundaries. In order to understand the origins of states and empires, it is best to examine a metropolitan center with a dynamic and regionally interconnected landscape. Excavations at a civic-administrative complex at the heart of the one of the largest and most influential cities of its time examine key conjunctures where state authority was amassed, materialized, and embodied through ritualized acts. As a project situated in the ceremonial center of a major heritage site , the project builds national and international partnerships between academics, students, and the wider public to support a model of archaeological stewardship. The project contributes to the development of the scientific workforce and broadens the participation of underrepresented groups in science through the inclusion and training of a widely diverse pool of 45 graduate and undergraduate students representing 14 institutions. Additionally, the project enhances public scientific literacy and understanding of the scientific method through the dissemination of project outcomes on a trilingual website. The researchers plan to excavate an elite administrative complex asking whether there is evidence to suggest that it was the center of a complex, regional ritual economy that naturalized and perpetuated state authority, and what role foreign entities played in the development of state authority. This major metropolitan center's sociopolitical, ideological, and economic sustenance reverberated throughout the region, including strong political and military oversight over locations far away. Three field seasons and laboratory analysis will target activity areas of known foreign presence to pinpoint the stewards and practices instrumental to the naturalization and perpetuation of the state authority. Analytical techniques include laboratory analysis of non-local ceramics and mural fragments (to construct their social life based on source locality of raw resources, production technologies, iconographic elements, social identity of the producers, and their manner of exchange, use, and termination), radiocarbon dating, osteological/botanical analysis and isotope analysis of ecofacts (human animal, and other paleobotanical remains); and osteological and chemical analysis to reconstruct the movements of goods and people through the ritual economy. The project's contribution of new primary excavation data provides critical additional information in the long debate of whether the site was primarily a dominant or cooperative force in the creation of a pan-regional network. This research not only shapes scientific understanding of urban central administrative domestic politics and regional influence, but also fundamentally informs theories about the economic, political, and social development of neighboring and distant polities.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.