Modeling Long-Term Urban and Rural Settlement Dynamics

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学（SBE）博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在费耶特维尔阿肯色大学卡拉·克莱姆博士的赞助下，该博士后奖学金奖支持研究城乡动态的早期职业科学家。这个项目调查了一个区域定居系统中城市化的社会进程。它通过长期的考古研究推进了人类社会和组织行为这些方面的科学知识。本研究通过调查社区的空间聚落模式，有助于了解农村和城市社会变迁的一般知识，这些社区与城市机构有所区别，并与城市中心的权力集中协商。小型人类群体如何与城市形成的出现产生社会关系一直是一个重要的人类学问题，对理解长期可持续性和弹性具有重要意义。然而，大多数研究都使用了全球主要城市形成中心的例子。相比之下，本研究通过对大型城市中心的长期考虑，加深了对城乡互动的理解。这项研究的结果将告知人类适应全球社会转型和政治不稳定的一般理解。该项目使用考古方法和地理空间分析来了解从公元11世纪到19世纪农村社区和大型城市定居点之间的空间和物质关系。城市化在多大程度上意味着本土农村社会网络的（解体）整合或从属，以及农村社区与社会世界的联系方式，都尚未得到解决。这项研究将通过调查与城市发展相关的农村定居动态，完善全球城市化模型。该项目提出的问题是，农村社区在经济和物质上与城镇居民纠缠在一起的程度有多大？从前殖民时期开始，通过殖民接触，进入19世纪，城乡聚落动态是如何变化的？本项目利用低成本、高分辨率的航空和多光谱卫星图像，综合历史地图、文本来源、水文模型、地质数据和无人机图像的基于对象的自动图像分析，创建农村遗址分布的预测模型，以发现文化重要特征。接下来，该项目利用该模型对城市腹地进行有针对性的调查。最后，测试挖掘将用于比较农村腹地遗址的物质文化与已经从城市中心挖掘的收藏品。这将使人们能够理解不同时间的空间和物质模式以及与城市中心的关系。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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 award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Carla Klehm at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist studying urban-rural dynamics. This project investigates the social processes of urbanization within a regional settlement system. It advances scientific knowledge on these aspects of human social and organizational behavior through a long-term archaeological study. This research contributes to general knowledge about rural and urban social change by investigating the spatial settlement patterns of communities which differentiated themselves from urban institutions and negotiated with the centralization of power in urban centers. How small human groups related socially to the emergence of urban formations has been an important anthropological question with implications for understanding long-term sustainability and resilience. However, most research has used examples from primary centers of urban formation globally. In contrast, this research deepens an understanding of urban-rural interaction through a consideration of large urban centers over the long-term. The results of this research will inform general understandings of human adaptations to social transformation and political instability globally.This project uses archaeological methods and geospatial analyses to understand the spatial and material relationships between rural communities and large urban settlements, from the 11th to 19th centuries CE. The extent to which urbanization meant the (dis)integration or subordination of indigenous rural social networks is unresolved, as are the ways rural communities related to the social world. This research will refine models of global urbanism by investigating rural settlement dynamics in relation to urban development over time. The project asks, to what extent were rural communities entangled economically and materially with town dwellers, and how did urban-rural settlement dynamics change from the precolonial period, through colonial contact, and into the 19th century? This project uses low-cost, high-resolution aerial and multispectral satellite imagery to create a predictive model for rural site distribution, integrating historical maps, textual sources, hydrological models, geological data, and automated object-based image analysis of drone imagery to detect cultural significant features. Next, the project uses this model to develop a targeted survey of the urban hinterland. Finally, test excavations will be used to compare material culture from rural hinterland sites with already excavated collections from urban centers. This will enable an understanding of the spatial and material patterns across time and in relation to urban centers.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.