Productive Intensification in an Urban Landscape: Survey, Excavation, and Palaeoenvironmental Analysis in the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Region

在国家科学基金会的支持下，凯瑟琳·莫里森博士和她的合作者将在位于印度南部的维贾亚纳加拉遗址进行考古研究。维贾亚纳加拉市是一个帝国的首都，在公元14世纪到16世纪之间，这个帝国声称控制了印度半岛的大部分地区。它建立在一个从来没有政治中心或人口稠密的地区，14世纪初该市的快速扩张促使农业和手工艺品生产的组织和规模发生了戏剧性的变化。16世纪初，维贾亚纳加拉再次经历了一段时期的军事征服、纪念性建筑的建造和人口的扩张。这种情况为莫里森博士提供了一个研究经济变化过程的绝佳机会。在之前五个季度研究的基础上，她的项目将研究紧邻城市周围地区的生产、定居、交通和防御工事的结构。考古学、历史学和植物学三条独立的证据线将结合在一起对该地区进行分析。该团队将继续他们的系统密集地面测量计划。他们还将收集用于植物大化石和微化石分析的岩芯。最后，以碑文为基础的历史研究将提供重要的经济和年代信息。考古学家希望了解复杂的社会如何管理经济，使大量的人能够用相对简单的生产技术维持自己的生活。莫里森博士特别关注生产和消费的经济方面，并希望详细了解人类环境的相互作用。她将研究随着时间的推移，农业、手工艺生产和国内活动的影响。岩心和精选的挖掘将产生木炭和植物遗骸，通过仔细的分析，将提供对环境变化的洞察。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将提供许多考古学家感兴趣的数据。它将增加我们对复杂社会如何发展和维持的理解，并将提供关于人类与环境相互作用的丰富信息。

Morrison With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Kathleen Morrison and her collaborators will conduct archaeological research at the site of Vijayanagara, located in Southern India. The city of Vijayanagara was the capital of an empire that claimed control over much of peninsular India between the 14th and 16th centuries A.D. It was established in an area that had never been politically central or densely occupied and the rapid expansion of the city in the early years of the 14th century prompted dramatic changes in the organization and scale of production of agriculture and craft goods. In the early 16th century Vijayanagara again underwent a period of expansion in miliary conquest, construction of monumental architecture and also population. This situation provides Dr. Morrison with an excellent opportunity to investigate processes of economic change. Building on five previous seasons of research, her project will examine the structure of production, settlement, transportation and fortification in the region immediately surrounding the city. Three independent lines of evidence, archaeological, historical and botanical will be combined in the analysis of this region. The team will continue their program of systematic intensive surface survey. They will also collect cores for both plant macrofosil and microfossil analysis. Finally historical research based on inscriptions will provide important economic and chronological information. Archaeologists wish to understand how complex societies manage economies with allow large number of people to sustain themselves with relatively simple production techniques. In particular Dr. Morrison is focussing on economic aspects of production and consumption and wishes to understand in detail human environment interactions. She will examine the effect over time of agriculture, craft production and domestic activities. The cores and selected excavations will yield charcoal and plant remains which, through careful analy sis, will provide insight into environmental changes. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will increase our understanding of how complex societies develop and are maintained and will provide a wealth of information on human - environmental interactions.