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，迫使他们的臣民离开家园，在遥远的土地上开始新的生活。今天，被迫或胁迫移徙对许多人来说仍然是一个现实。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。在古代帝国中，大多数关于重新安置的书面记录都来自富有和强大的精英，他们希望以积极的方式展示他们的行动，而强迫搬迁很少能为考古学家留下清晰的物质特征。研究人员经常忽略一些基本问题，比如：被重新安置的人如何适应新的现实？他们面临哪些挑战？在多大程度上，重新安置是暴力的？生物考古学是对考古遗址中人类遗骸的研究，它提供了一些方法和工具来深入了解被国家和帝国重新安置的人们的日常生活经历。由于这是一个博士论文研究项目，该补助金促进了学生的学术和智力发展。该项目包括与当地社区的外联活动，利用生物考古学研究一个重新安置社区的生活经历，该社区是一个更大进程的一部分，在这个进程中，多达400万人被迁移。调查人员与考古学家合作，挖掘相关墓地的部分。他们利用骨骼地球化学来确定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体进行比较。他们研究了出土个体骨骼上的指标，以了解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新的地区。将移民与当地人进行比较，可以揭示出他们使用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为科学知识和实践服务，促进妇女在科学考古学方面的国际合作，并促进对Inka案例研究内外国家指导的重新安置的科学理解。该奖项反映了NSF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。

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.