Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Organic Residue Analysis into Long Term Dye Preservation

21世纪全球经济的许多特征——互联互通、全球化、商品广泛流通、经济作物农业日益以对外出口为导向——都是由至少可以追溯到近代早期的长期历史进程塑造的。这个项目调查了那个时期的一种主要商品和经济作物：胭脂虫。这种充满活力的红色昆虫染料在前西班牙时代的墨西哥经济、艺术和知识生产中发挥了几个世纪的核心作用，如果不是几千年的话。在西班牙入侵并建立新西班牙殖民地之后，胭脂虫彻底改变了新兴的全球化经济、艺术运动和科学发现。胭脂虫醛出现在英国军官的红色外套上、欧洲著名画家的油画上，甚至出现在启蒙运动科学家新近提出的假说上。然而，对于殖民地西班牙对这种染料的需求如何改变了墨西哥原有的生产体系，人们知之甚少。胭脂虫生产商几乎没有留下书面记录，因此考古学特别适合调查西班牙殖民如何影响他们的生活和他们参与的行业。通过在考古时间尺度上调查墨西哥胭胭红的生产，该项目有助于更广泛地了解全球化如何影响并继续影响当地的农业系统和经济。研究人员使用有机化学分析来识别曾经用于生产胭脂虫的工具。通过分析这些工具的频率随时间的变化，他们调查了关于墨西哥胭脂虫生产的古代的各种问题。更具体地说，胭脂虫生产的经济实践有多普遍，它是如何随着时间而变化的？此外，这种经济实践是如何与西班牙征服的更广泛背景（包括人口下降、融入跨大西洋经济和生态变化）相交叉的？该项目的方法依赖于考古化学分析的最新发展，这使得鉴定保存在古代文物中的化合物成为可能。这些方法有可能极大地扩大人们认为可以了解过去的范围；然而，由于大多数考古学家缺乏有机化学方面的培训，它们一直没有得到充分利用和开发。这个项目通过改进现有的方法来推进考古学的科学技术，使它们能够探测更大范围的化合物，从而探测更广泛的人类行为。该项目分析了墨西哥中部特拉斯卡拉州考古遗址的现有文物收藏，特拉斯卡拉州是墨西哥殖民地最大的胭脂虫生产中心之一。通过建立一个强大的当地生产案例研究，该项目将加强分析方法，可应用于未来的研究项目，研究当地染料生产与全球贸易之间的交叉点。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。

Many features of the 21st century global economy – interconnectedness, globalization, widely circulating commodities, and cash crop agriculture increasingly oriented towards foreign export – were shaped by long-term historical processes that trace back at least to the early modern period. This project investigates one key commodity and cash crop of that period: cochineal. This vibrant red insect-based dye played a central role in prehispanic Mexican economies, artistry, and knowledge production for centuries, if not millennia. Following the Spanish invasion and establishment of colonial New Spain, cochineal revolutionized emerging globalized economies, artistic movements, and scientific discovery. Cochineal made its way onto the red coats of British military officers, the canvases of Europe’s celebrated painters, and even the newly developed hypotheses of Enlightenment scientists. Yet, far less is known about how colonial Spain’s demand for this dye changed pre-existing production systems within Mexico. Cochineal producers left behind few written records, and thus archaeology is particularly well suited to investigating how Spanish colonization impacted their lives and the industry in which they participated. By investigating Mexican cochineal production on an archaeological time scale, this project contributes to broader efforts to understand how globalization has impacted and continues to impact local agricultural systems and economies. The researchers use organic chemical analysis to identify tools that were once used to produce cochineal. By analyzing the change over time in the frequency of these tools, they investigate various questions about the antiquity of cochineal production in Mexico. More specifically, how widespread was the economic practice of cochineal production, and how did it change over time? Additionally, how did this economic practice intersect with the broader context of the Spanish conquest, including demographic decline, incorporation into transatlantic economies, and ecological change? This project’s methods rely upon recent developments in archaeo-chemical analysis that make possible the identification of chemical compounds preserved in ancient artifacts. These methods have the potential to greatly expand the scope of what is considered possible to learn about the past; however, they have been both underutilized and underdeveloped due to the lack of training in organic chemistry most archaeologists receive. This project advances scientific techniques in archaeology by refining existing methodologies so that they are capable of detecting a wider range of chemical compounds, and therefore, a wider range of human behaviors. This project analyzes existing artifact collections from archaeological sites in the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala, one of the largest centers of colonial Mexican cochineal production. By building one robust case study of local production, this project will strengthens analytical methods that can be applied to future research projects examining the intersections between local dye production and global trade.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.