Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Food practices and social stratification at the Shang period Bronze Age site of Anyang

在Ian Hodder博士的指导下，Katrinka Reinhart将分析中国河南省安阳青铜时代早期考古遗址的数据。安阳在商朝（中国第一个历史朝代）作为都城而繁荣，大约从公元前1200年到公元前1050年。该遗址以其伟大的艺术和技术成就而闻名：其宏伟的墓葬，大型高架建筑，复杂的青铜礼器和甲骨文。这些精致的特征与遗址的物质文化、住所和墓葬形成了鲜明的对比，后者更小、更简单，而且通常更具功能性。这种文化遗存的鲜明对比揭示了安阳社会阶层之间日益加深的分化，并描绘了一个生活方式和社会地位与下层社会地位有很大差异的统治阶级。本研究项目质疑安阳社会不平等的加剧是如何建立和维持的。调查的目的是在一个规模更个人比机构，看看不同阶层的人之间的日常做法的差异。安阳人在日常生活中是如何经历如此严重的不平等的？研究将特别关注不同社会地位的人之间围绕食物的做法的差异。其目的是了解政治如何在食物领域发挥作用--人们如何吃东西，如何准备食物，他们使用的器皿类型，以及与食物的象征性和意识形态联系如何用于识别、区分和分离社会群体，从而加强精英阶层的统治。安阳不同社会阶层居民的饮食习惯将通过几种方法进行分析：残留物分析、古饮食分析和陶器类型学分析。每个程序的数据将从不同的社会阶层收集。首先，通过气相色谱-质谱（GC/MS）技术分析保留在陶器孔隙中的食物残留物，以确定烹饪的食物类型。其次，将通过稳定同位素技术分析人骨，以确定饮食。第三，将检查用于制备和食用食物的器具的类型和功能。这些分析程序将与安阳出土文献的研究相结合，这个项目将对学术界和普通读者都有意义。主题和分析方法结合了联合收割机的理论和方法，从社会科学和硬科学，因此将相关的跨学科的学术观众。公众宣传也将是该项目的一个重要方面。知识传播将包括建造一个足够小的博物馆展览，以便在美国和中国之间旅行，此外还有一个描述该项目的网站，目前正在建设中：http://www.chinesearchaeology.org。看看中国文明开始时不同的人吃什么食物会很有趣，但此外，由于食物是我们所有人都涉及的东西，这项研究有能力向外行人传达政治在日常生活中如何发挥作用的想法。最后，该项目将与中国学者合作开展，从而进一步促进两国之间的学术思想交流和联系。

Under the direction of Dr. Ian Hodder, Katrinka Reinhart will analyze data from the early Bronze Age archaeological site of Anyang in Henan province, China. Anyang flourished as a capital city during the Shang dynasty, the first historical dynasty in China, from roughly 1200 - 1050 BCE. The site is well known for its great artistic and technological achievements: its grand burials, large elevated buildings, sophisticated bronze ritual vessels, and 'oracle bone' texts. These elaborate features contrast markedly with material culture, dwellings, and burials at the site that are smaller, plainer and generally more functional. Such stark contrast in cultural remains reveals a deepening division between social classes at Anyang and depicts a ruling class whose lifestyle and position in society differed greatly from those of lower social status.The current research project questions how this intensification of social inequality at Anyang was established and maintained. Investigation is aimed at a scale more personal than institutional, looking at differences in everyday practices between people from different classes. How did individuals at Anyang experience such deep inequality in their day-to-day lives? Research will specifically focus on differences in practices surrounding food between people of different social status. The aim is to see how politics play out in the domain of food - how what people ate, how they prepared food, how the types of utensils they used, and how the symbolic and ideological associations with food served to identify, distinguish, and separate social groups thereby strengthening the domination of the elite class.Food habits of Anyang residents from different social classes will be analyzed through several methods: residue analysis, paleodiet analysis, and typological analysis of pottery. Data for each procedure will be collected from different social classes. First, food residues retained in the pores of pottery vessels will be analyzed through the technique of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) to determine what types of foodstuffs were cooked. Second, human bone will be analyzed through the stable isotope technique in order to determine diet. Third, the style and function of utensils used in food preparation and consumption will be examined. These analytical procedures will be complemented with a study of texts recovered from Anyang.This project will be of interest to both scholarly and general audiences. The topics and analytical methods combine theories and methods from both the social sciences and the hard sciences and will thus be relevant to an interdisciplinary academic audience. Public outreach will be also an important aspect of the project. Knowledge distribution will include the construction of a museum exhibit small enough to travel between the US and China in addition to a website describing the project, currently under construction at: http://www.chinesearchaeology.org. It will be fascinating to see what foods were eaten by various people at the beginning of Chinese civilization, but moreover, since food is something we all relate to, this study has the ability to convey to the lay-person ideas about how politics play out in daily life. Finally, the project will be undertaken in collaboration with scholars from China and will thus further scholarly exchange of ideas and ties between the two nations.