Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Animal Management and the Development of Social complexity

这个博士论文项目将研究人与动物的相互作用对早期城市化和国家发展的作用和影响。尽管人与动物的关系对城市社会和早期国家的发展产生了重大影响，但与其他经济领域相比，动物经济相对而言研究不足，而且往往过于简单化。在这个项目中，研究人员调查了促进世界上第一个城市和帝国社会发展的人与动物互动的类型。结合严格的实证分析和创新的理论框架，该项目扩展了城市化和政治经济权力的传统模式。应用一个创新的理论框架，强调城市和国家社会的异质性，研究人员通过强调存在多种共存的动物管理系统，从不同的社区特定的需求，承认在早期城市的不同社区的机构。这种对城市动物经济的“低权力”方法使传统的自上而下的叙述复杂化，使国家失去中心地位，并广泛适用于世界多个地区的城市和帝国景观的研究。此外，该项目本身还促进了美国学术机构与多个国际合作者之间的国际合作和学术联系。动物考古学培训也将提供给考古学学生参与挖掘，促进方法的专业化，是在需求的发展。在这个项目中，研究人员调查复杂的农牧计划和地理上广阔的经济网络，管理人类与动物的互动在早期城市和国家社会。该项目提供了对满足早期城市社区和机构特定需求的经济网络的新理解，包括生计，工业和意识形态驱动的动物供应。研究人员将通过对考古动物骨骼的有针对性的分析来调查管理这些人类与动物互动的系统。具体来说，研究人员问，动物经济是如何构建的，人与动物的关系如何影响城市和国家的发展？使用动物考古学的组合（即，考古动物骨骼的研究），同位素分析（即，考古动物骨骼和牙齿的化学分析），以及历史和图像比较，研究人员将调查1）微观上的专门动物经济（例如，家庭）和宏观尺度（例如，城市地区），2）动物供给的地理规模，3）城市经济从一个独立王国发展成为帝国首都。采用创新的“低功耗”城市动物经济模式，突出多个共存网络，旨在满足城市景观中不同社区和机构的具体需求，该项目为研究城市经济和城市与帝国社会的维护提供了一个新的框架。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响评审标准。

This doctoral dissertation project will investigate the roles and impacts of human-animal interactions on early urbanization and state development. Despite the significant impact of human-animal relationships on the development of urban societies and early states, animal economies have been comparatively understudied, and often oversimplified, compared to other economic spheres. Within this project, researchers investigate the types of human-animal interactions that facilitated the development of one of the world’s first urban and imperial societies. Combining rigorous empirical analyses and an innovative theoretical framework, this project expands upon traditional models of urbanization and political and economic power. Applying an innovative theoretical framework that emphasizes heterogeneity in urban and state societies, researchers acknowledge the agency of diverse communities within early cities by highlighting the existence of multiple co-existing systems of animal management resulting from diverse community-specific needs. This “low power” approach to urban animal economy complicates traditional top-down narratives, de-centers the state, and is widely applicable to the study of urban and imperials landscapes in multiple regions of the world. Additionally, the project itself promotes international cooperation and scholarly connections between academic institutions in the United States and multiple international collaborators. Zooarchaeological training will also be provided to archaeology students participating in the excavation, facilitating the development of a methodological specialization that is in demand.Within this project, researchers investigate the complex agropastoral programs and geographically expansive economic networks that managed human-animal interactions in early urban and state societies. The project provides a new understanding of the economic networks that met the specific needs of early urban communities and institutions, including subsistence, industry, and ideologically motivated animal provisioning. Researchers will investigate the systems that managed these human-animal interactions through the targeted analysis of archaeological animal bones. Specifically, researchers ask, how were animal economies structured and how did human-animal relationships impact urban and state development? Using a combination of zooarchaeology (i.e., the study of archaeological animal bones), isotope analysis (i.e., the chemical analysis of archaeological animal bones and teeth), and historical and iconographic comparison, researchers will investigate 1) specialized animal economies on a micro- (e.g., households) and macroscale (e.g., city districts), 2) the geographic scale of animal provisioning, and 3) the development of the city’s economies from an independent kingdom into the imperial capital. Framed using an innovative “low power” model of urban animal economy, highlighting multiple co-existing networks designed to meet the specific needs of diverse communities and institutions within the urban landscape, this project provides a novel framework to the study of urban economies and the maintenance of urban and imperial societies.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.