Doctoral Dissertation Research: Biocultural Responses to Forced Resettlement

纵观历史，各个帝国都采取了重新安置政策，迫使其臣民离开家园，在遥远的土地上开始新的生活。对今天的许多人来说，被迫或被迫迁移仍然是一个现实。重新安置人民的边缘化地位可能使研究他们现在和过去的经历变得困难。在古代帝国，大多数关于重新安置的书面描述都来自有钱有权的精英阶层，他们希望用积极的眼光来展示他们的行动，而强迫重新安置很少会给考古学家留下明确的物质签名供他们研究。研究人员往往忽视了这样的基本问题：被重新安置的人是如何适应他们新的现实的？他们面临着哪些挑战？重新安置的暴力程度如何？生物考古学研究考古遗址中的人类遗骸，为洞察被国家和帝国重新安置的人们的日常生活经历提供了方法和工具。由于这是一项博士论文研究项目，这笔助学金进一步促进了学生的学术和智力发展。该项目包括与当地社区的接触。该项目使用生物考古学来研究一个重新安置社区的生活经历，这是一个更大的过程的一部分，在这个过程中，多达400万人被搬迁。调查人员与考古学家合作挖掘了一个相关墓地的部分区域。他们使用骨骼地球化学来识别埋葬在墓地中的人中，谁最有可能是移民，以便将他们与来自同一地点的非移民个人进行比较。他们研究挖掘出的个体骨骼上的指标，看看移民是否经历过暴力或高发病率，以及他们是否改变了饮食或身体装饰形式以适应他们的新地区。将移民与当地人进行比较，揭示了他们采取了什么策略来控制重新安置的对象，以及重新安置是如何塑造整体生活体验的。该项目的设计使其能够服务于科学知识和实践，促进科学考古中妇女之间的国际合作，并促进对国家指导的重新安置的科学理解，在INKA案例研究之内和之外。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Throughout history, empires have adopted resettlement policies that forced their subjects to leave home and begin new lives in faraway lands. Forced or coerced migration remains a reality for many people today. The marginalized status of resettled peoples can make it difficult to study their experiences in both the present and the past. In ancient empires, most written accounts of resettlement come from the wealthy and powerful elites who wished to present their actions in a positive light, and forced relocation rarely leaves a clear material signature for archaeologists to study. Often, researchers have overlooked such basic questions as: how did people who were resettled adjust to their new reality? What challenges did they face? To what extent was resettlement violent? Bioarchaeology, the study of human remains from archaeological sites, provides methods and tools to gain insight into the daily life experiences of people relocated by states and empires. Since this is a doctoral dissertation research project this grant furthers the student’s academic and intellectual development. The project includes outreach to the local community.This project uses bioarchaeology to study the life experiences of one resettled community which was part of a larger process in which as many as 4,000,000 people were moved. The investigators collaborate with archaeologists to excavate parts of an associated cemetery. They employ bone geochemistry to identify who, among those buried in the cemetery, were most likely migrants in order to compare them to non-migrant individuals from the same site. They study indicators on the bones of excavated individuals to see if migrants experienced violence or high rates of disease, and if they changed their diets or forms of body adornment to conform to their new region. Comparing migrants to locals reveal what tactics were used to control resettled subjects and how resettlement shaped overall life experiences. The design of this project allows it to serve both scientific knowledge and practice by facilitating an international collaboration between women in scientific archaeology and promoting scientific understanding of state-directed resettlement within and beyond the Inka case study.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.