Doctoral Dissertation Research: Utilization of Prior Cultural Features

这篇博士论文项目试图理解如何通过与物理环境，特别是与过去的物质遗迹的相互作用来建立同一性和差异性的形成。过去民族的遗骸经常存在于活生生的文化景观中，并经常以与现在有关的方式进行，包括构建新的身份并使其合法化。这项研究的重点是这些身份建构过程的社会机制：人们如何理解过去与现在的相关性？哪些过去对哪些类型的身份认同项目有用？一项专注于具有多个参与阶段的纪念性景观的考古研究可以揭示这些社会过程是如何展开的，为不同历史条件下对过去的想象提供了一个历时的视角。在研究这些物质参与的考古学背景时，这项研究为过去在群体形成和维持社会差异中的作用提供了新的见解。今天，当政治和社会运动充分利用过去的象征来宣称合法性和文化价值时，这些问题尤其相关。这项研究还建立了一个与当地遗产进行批判性接触的框架。它征求当地居民和研究网站访问者的意见，并将这些意见纳入数据集中。综合数据集的一个版本将在网上公开提供，供公众继续参与和贡献，使当地利益相关者和研究社区都受益。已经确定了三个研究区域，每个区域包含各种古迹、聚落和其他考古特征，显示出重复使用、重新占领、修改或其他类型参与的连续阶段的证据。研究人员假设，这些景观构成了早期历史时期构建身份的物质竞技场，为这些建筑提供了史前居住者的物质遗骸作为资源。博士生试图了解这些景观随着时间的推移是否有不同的重复使用方式，以及一个时期的某些特征或纪念碑是否更有可能被纳入另一个时期的活景观中。这样的模式让我们洞察到相关过去被想象成与早期历史人物互动的方式。无人机航空摄影用于产生高分辨率的图像和地形模型，与行人调查一起作为数据收集的主要手段，以了解这些复杂景观中的空间关系。基于地理信息系统对这些数据的统计分析侧重于在这些景观再利用模式中创建群体之间的对比的方式。研究人员还在挖掘史前起源的珊瑚特征，它可能在早期历史时期被用作显著的文化边界标志。这次挖掘将使研究人员能够评估这一特征的性质，并获得其多个使用阶段和可能的修改的放射性碳日期。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 projects seeks to understand how formations of identity and difference are established through interaction with the physical environment, and especially with material remains of the past. The physical remains of past peoples frequently persist in living cultural landscapes and are often engaged in ways that bear upon the present, including in the construction and legitimation of novel identities. This study focuses on the social mechanisms of these processes of identity construction: How do people understand the relevance of the past for their present? Which pasts become useful for which kinds of identity projects? An archaeological study concentrating on monumental landscapes with many phases of engagement can reveal how these social processes unfold, offering a diachronic perspective on the imagination of the past under different historical conditions. In studying these archaeological contexts of material engagement, this study provides novel insight on the role of the past in group formation and the maintenance of social difference. These issues are particularly relevant today, when political and social movements make ample use of symbols of pasts to claim legitimacy and cultural value. This research also establishes a framework for critical engagement with local heritage. It solicits input from local residents and visitors to the research sites and incorporates this input into the dataset. A version of the resulting composite dataset will be made openly available online for continued public engagement and contribution, benefiting both local stakeholders and the research community.Three study areas that each encompass a variety of monuments, settlements, and other archaeological features that show evidence of successive phases of reuse, re-occupation, modification, or other kinds of engagement have been identified. The investigators hypothesize that these landscapes constituted the material arenas in which identities were constructed in the early historic period, offering the material remains of prehistoric occupants as a resource in these constructions. The doctoral student seeks to understand whether there are distinct patterns in the ways these landscapes are reused through time, and if certain features or monuments from one period are more likely to be incorporated into the living landscape of another. Such patterns lend insight into the ways the relevant pasts were imagined to related to the early historic people who interacted with them. Drone-based aerial photography, used to produce high-resolution imagery and topographic models, serves alongside pedestrian survey as the primary means of data collection to apprehend spatial relationships within these complex landscapes. GIS-based statistical analysis of these data focuses on the ways contrasts between groups were created in these patterns of landscape reuse. The researchers are additionally excavating a cairn feature of prehistoric origin which may have been taken up as a salient cultural boundary marker in the early historic period. This excavation will allow the researchers to assess the nature of this feature and to attain radiocarbon dates for its multiple phases of use and possible modifications.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.