Archival Research in Micronesia

这项研究将描述和分析22个密克罗尼西亚群岛的环境条件、社会政治复杂性和社会分层程度之间的关系。PI将以受控比较方法进行档案研究。利用考古学、人种学、民族史学和语言资料，该协会将重建原密克罗尼西亚文化的主要元素，以描述和分析政治和阶层制度的变化。这个项目很重要，因为它将提供我们对密克罗尼西亚人民和文化知识的主要综合，并将为波利尼西亚其他地区的类似研究提供一个比较案例。通过对世界上一个鲜为人知的地区的文化进化应用系统学方法，它将加强我们对不平等制度如何在人类社会中产生和持续存在的理解。

This research will describe and analyze the relationships between environmental conditions, sociopolitical complexity and degree of social stratification for 22 Micronesian islands. The PI will do archival research in a controlled comparison methodology. Using archaeological, ethnographic, ethnohistorical and linguistic sources the PI will reconstruct key elements of proto-Micronesian culture to describe and analyze variations in political and stratification systems. This project is important because it will provide a major synthesis of our knowledge of the peoples and cultures of Micronesia, and will provide a comparative case to similar studies for other areas of Polynesia. By applying a phylogenetic approach to cultural evolution in a little-known part of the world it will enhance our understanding of how systems of inequality arise and persist in human societies.