Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Development of Modern Commercialism

这个博士论文项目调查了扩大市场和劳动力和资源的商品化改变当地自给自足的经济和社会的方式。商品化是现代全球经济的核心，也是过去市场经济形成的一个关键发展。人们早就认识到，欧洲殖民主义在全球范围内释放了商品化，伴随着新的生产议程、以市场为基础的消费模式，甚至通过物种引进、消耗和灭绝进行生态重组。作为第一次全球经济扩张的一部分，殖民征服给世界许多地方带来了商品化和重商主义，但这一过程是否建立在先前的商品化和专业化形式之上？例如，当地居民是如何参与西班牙市场秩序的，反过来，市场心态和做法是如何受到当地经济安排的影响的？新的混合生产结构和实践是如何在市场逻辑符合本土模式的殖民环境中诞生的？这些问题仍然是重要的调查主题，以更好地了解全球化的动态，过去和现在。本研究从考古学的角度考察了主要基于自给自足、互惠和再分配的土著经济实践如何面对基于劳动力和自然资源商品化的商业实践。博士生考察了一个土著海上狩猎采集社区，因为这个地方被改造成一个重要的早期殖民地港口。综合了关于社区组成、职业专业化、生产和消费（从饮食和个人财产到渔具和对渔业资源的影响）的各种考古和档案证据，以跟踪从前西班牙时期到早期殖民时期居民（土著和殖民地）社会经济生活和栖息地的变化。保存完好的考古环境提供了一个无与伦比的机会，可以在这些证据线的细微尺度上进行放射性碳测年，产生与商品化和市场实践相关的变化时间和顺序的关键信息。这样的研究提供了一个未被充分研究的定居点类型——早期殖民地港口——作为一个揭示性的、多样化的劳动力社区的生动画面，并在商品化过程的黎明提供了一个考古案例研究。这种认识进一步加深了对最初商业节点的动态和早期殖民市场的混合性质的比较理解。此外，研究小组对栖息地变化（海洋和陆地）的密切研究推动了环境考古学在人类世栖息地变化和过度捕捞方面的研究。与当地机构合作，为学生提供考古和生物化学方面的研究材料和培训机会。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 doctoral dissertation project investigates the ways in which expanding markets and the commodification of labor and resources transform local, self-sufficient economies and societies. Commodification is at the core of the modern global economy and was a key development in the formation of market economies in the past. It has long been recognized that European colonialism unleashed commodification worldwide accompanied by new productive agendas, market-based consumer patterns, and even ecological rearrangements via species introductions, depletions, and extinctions. Colonial conquest brought commodification and mercantilism to many parts of the world as part of spreading the first global economy, but did this process build on prior forms of commodification and specialization? How did local populations for example engage with the overarching Spanish market order, and conversely, how were market mentalities and practices shaped by native economic arrangements? How were new hybrid productive structures and practices born in colonial settings as market logics met native patterns? These questions remain important subjects of investigation to better understand globalization dynamics, past and the present. Using an archaeological perspective this research examines how indigenous economic practices, largely based on self-sufficiency, reciprocity and redistribution, confronted a mercantile praxis based on the commodification of labor and natural resources. The doctoral student examines an indigenous maritime hunter-gatherer community as this place was transformed into an important early colonial port. Diverse archeological and archival lines of evidence on community composition, occupation specialization, production and consumption (from diet and personal possessions to fishing gear and impact on fishing stocks) are integrated to track changes in socioeconomic life and habitat of residents (both indigenous and colonial) from the prehispanic through early colonial periods. A well preserved archaeological setting provides an unparalleled opportunity to radiocarbon date at the fine scale important changes in these lines of evidence, generating critical information on the timing and sequences of change relating to commodification and market practices. Such a study provides a vivid picture of an understudied settlement type - - the early colonial port - - as a revealing, diverse workforce community, and provides an archaeological case study at the dawn of commodification processes. This knowledge furthers comparative understanding of the dynamics of initial commercial nodes and the hybrid nature of the early colonial markets generally. In addition, the close study of habitat change (marine and terrestrial) by the research team advances environmental archaeology on the topics of Anthropocene habitat change and overfishing. Collaboration with local institutions offer students research materials and training opportunities in archaeology and biochemistry.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.