Counter Culture: investigating Neolithic social diversity

该项目的目的是揭示中欧最早的农民社会多样性的形式和程度，以便为研究社会不平等的历史提供新的途径。第一批农民出现在中欧的新石器时代，距今约7500年。这场所谓的“农业革命”是当今许多不平等现象的坩埚，例如获得食物和良好健康的机会不平等。尽管农业革命对社会不平等的历史有着明显的重要性，但我们对它在新石器时代的发展过程中是如何以及为什么发展的知之甚少。长期以来，人们一直认为，除了最初向农业过渡之外，新石器时代的特征可以是人口和等级的稳定、稳定和不间断的增长，并得到逐渐强化的农业的支持。最近的两项研究进展要求我们重新思考社会多样性，以及隐含的不平等，是如何在新石器时代上升、下降和持续的。首先，放射性碳年代的统计建模产生了一个精确到人类世代的年表，从而可以对社会变化进行细致的理解。这项研究颠覆了人们对经济稳定增长的看法。现在必须考虑到序列中的快速膨胀、崩溃、收缩和中断的时期，首先是解释。其次，一套新的生物考古方法使考古学家能够通过分析不同性别、年龄和新石器时代不同社会阶层之间的流动性、饮食、日常活动和亲属关系如何变化，来捕捉人类生活方式的多样性。通过在丧葬仪式的背景下解释这两种数据流，可以揭示人口的多样性。该项目将以阿尔萨斯新石器时代早期和中期（公元前5300-4300 cal）为重点。该地区形成了一个明确而连贯的地理区域，现在对所研究的时期有了高分辨率和精确的年表。阿尔萨斯新石器时代的生活方式将通过整合高分辨率锶同位素、稳定同位素分析和牙石分析的结果，以及现有的骨学信息和丧葬仪式证据来捕捉。锶同位素分析将揭示人类在青春期的活动模式，以及个人是否在童年和埋葬地点之间移动。稳定同位素分析将提供对年龄和性别之间饮食多样性的见解。通过分析保存在牙菌斑中的微化石，对牙结石的研究将允许对日常活动进行调查，并揭示有关饮食的进一步细节。然后，这些新的分析结果将与从人类骨骼和埋葬习俗中获得的信息结合起来进行解释。因此，该项目将描绘中欧新石器时代一千年来的社会多样性，分析饮食、流动性和健康，作为生活方式的代表，如何在不同的时间和不同的个人、墓地、定居点和文化群体之间变化。然后，它将建立在这些数据的基础上，询问新石器时代社会多样性（年龄、性别、社会群体或文化）的主要特征是什么，以及新石器时代社会不平等的历史是什么，它是随着时间的推移而增加、减少还是持续？我们的研究结果将通过开放获取的期刊文章、会议报告、带有博客的网站、相关的社交媒体以及可供公众和兴趣团体下载的资源和活动来传播。该项目将有利于新石器时代的学术研究，以及更广泛的社会不平等的历史。将其应用于儿童和当地社区的活动和资源，将有助于增进对当今社会日益不平等、全球流动和文化接触的社会多样性的复杂经验的理解。

The aim of this project is to reveal the forms and extent of social diversity amongst the earliest farmers of central Europe, in order to provide new avenues to investigate the history of social inequality. The first farmers appeared in central Europe in the Neolithic, a period around 7500 years ago. This so-called 'agricultural revolution' was the crucible of many present day inequalities, such as unequal access to food and good health. Despite the apparent importance of the agricultural revolution to the history of social inequality, we know remarkably little about how and why it developed across the course of the Neolithic. It has long been assumed that beyond the initial transition to farming, the Neolithic could be characterised as a steady, stable and unbroken growth of population and hierarchy, supported by a gradually intensifying agriculture. Two recent developments in research demand that we think again about how social diversity, and by implication inequalities, rose, fell and persisted across the Neolithic. First, statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates have produced a chronology refined to human generations, allowing for a fine-grained understanding of social change to be developed. This research has overturned the perception of steady growth. Periods of rapid expansion, collapse, contraction, and breaks in the sequence must now be accounted for and, above all, explained. Second, a suite of new bioarchaeological methods allow archaeologists to capture diversity in human lifeways, by analysing how mobility, diet, daily activities and kinship varied between the sexes, ages and different sections of Neolithic society. By interpreting these two data streams in context with the funerary rites, diversity across the population can be revealed. The project will take as its focus the Early and Middle Neolithic in Alsace (c.5300-4300 cal BC). Forming a well-defined and coherent geographical area, this region now has a high resolution and precise chronology for the period under study. Neolithic lifeways in Alsace will be captured through integrating the results from high resolution strontium isotope, stable isotope analysis and dental calculus analysis, with the existing osteological information and evidence from burial rites. Strontium isotope analysis will reveal human mobility patterns in adolescence and whether individuals moved between childhood and their place of burial. Stable isotope analysis will provide insights into diversity in diet between the ages and sexes. The investigation of dental calculus will permit the investigation of daily activities and reveal further details about diet, by analysing the mircofossils preserved in dental plaque. These new analyses will then be interpreted in context with information drawn from the human skeleton and burial practices. The project will thus characterise social diversity across a millennia in the Neolithic of central Europe, analysing how diet, mobility and health, as proxies for lifeways, varied in time and between different individual, cemeteries, settlements and cultural groups. It will then build on these data to ask what are the principal characteristics of Neolithic social diversity (age, sex, social group, or culture), and what was the history of Neolithic social inequality, does it increase, decrease or persist through time? Our results will be disseminated via open access journal articles, conference presentations, a website with blog, associated social media, and downloadable resources and events for the public and interest groups. The project will benefit the scholarly study of the Neolithic, and of the history of social inequality more broadly. Its application in events and resources for children and local communities will aid the effort to improve understanding of the complex experience of social diversity in today's world of growing social inequality, global mobility and culture contact.