Assessing Scales of Power and Inequality in Early States

本研究的目的是评估财富差异和制度化的不平等如何在热带国家发展和持续。本研究探讨了不同环境背景下的嵌套规模的社区-邻里，地区和城市之间的不平等。对早期国家制度化不平等的考古学评估是非常宝贵的，因为它们可以深入了解大量人口和其中较小部门之间财富差异的长期影响，阐明驱动城市人口内部和之间不平等的机制，并允许考虑可能减轻现代社会不平等的政策变化。研究人员将重点关注不平等如何在不同尺度上表现出来，以及社区，地区和城市居民之间获得资源的差异如何影响居民的福祉。这项研究的结果直接适用于其他存在财富差异的城市。这项研究提供了一个深入的分析，在热带国家的不平等，创建一个全面的数据集比较其他时空背景在过去和现在。研究人员和她的研究团队将评估环境设置，资源获取差异和贸易网络如何影响社区嵌套规模的不平等。研究人员将探讨制度化的不平等在三个离散的地形区域（沿海平原，山麓和山区）在两个不同的环境设置（高地地区和河谷）。包括光探测和测距（激光雷达）和全球定位系统在内的尖端地理空间技术将为五个场址的记录提供支持。房屋的位置、大小和建筑复杂性以及可控资源（如水、巧克力树和有价值的矿物）的存在将在调查期间记录下来。道路、社区和地区将在空间上建模。最后，将根据住房面积差异和对每户住房与市场和道路等可控资源和公共服务之间距离的统计分析，对不平等进行评估。研究人员将培训研究生和本科生在考古领域的技术和地理空间分析，并进行研究与当地社区。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

The goal of this study to assess how wealth differentials and institutionalized inequality develops and persists in tropical states. This study examines inequality among nested scales of community – neighborhoods, districts, and cities – within different environmental settings. Archaeological assessments of institutionalized inequality in early states are invaluable as they provide insights into the long-term effects of wealth differentials among large populations and smaller sectors within them, illuminating the mechanisms that drive inequality within and between populations in cities and allowing for the consideration of policy changes that may mitigate inequities in modern societies. The researcher will focus on how inequality manifests at different scales, and how differential access to resources among the occupants of neighborhoods, districts, and cities affect the well-being of its residents. The results of this study are directly applicable to other cities where differences in wealth are present. This study provides an in-depth analysis of inequality in tropical states, creating a comprehensive dataset for comparisons to other spatiotemporal contexts in the past and present. The investigator and her team of researchers will evaluate how environmental setting, differential access to resources, and trade networks impacted inequality at nested scales of community. The researcher will explore institutionalized inequality in three discrete topographic regions (coastal plains, foothills, and mountains) in two distinct environmental settings (upland areas and river valleys). Cutting-edge geospatial technologies including light detection and ranging (lidar) and GPS will support the documentation of five sites. Locations, size, and architectural complexity of houses and the presence of controllable resources such as water, chocolate trees, and valued minerals will be documented during survey. Roads, neighborhoods, and districts will be spatially modeled. Finally, inequality will be evaluated based on house size differentials and statistical analyses of the distance from each house to controllable resources and public services such as marketplaces and roads. The researcher will train graduate and undergraduate students in archaeological field techniques and geospatial analyses and conduct research alongside local communities.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.