Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Environmental Versus Social Contingencies and the Origins of Irrigation Farming in Highland Southwest Arabia

在Joy McCorriston博士的监督下，Michael Harrower将收集和分析也门偏远南部高地灌溉考古遗迹的数据。考古学家和历史学家都很清楚，那些靠乳香和没药的商队贸易而繁荣起来的伟大的阿拉伯城邦。但是在这些熏香王国之前的小规模社区是在水管理技术的帮助下做到的，而这些技术仍然鲜为人知。为了让南部阿拉伯人采用邻近地区的农业，他们需要一种利用稀缺水源的手段，他们利用了对当地条件的大量了解。随着我们对阿拉伯灌溉技术的发展有了更多的了解，我们可以更好地理解环境和社会因素的混合，这些因素推动古代社会走向阿拉伯高级文明，伊斯兰教及其魅力领袖从中扩展。当农民将不经常发生的洪水集中到一小块耕地上并种植作物时，就会发生这种情况。这种技术的引进，适应和发展，可以在考古记录中进行检查，通过使用几种策略，在高地的集水区小。首先，研究人员将利用全球定位系统（GPS）技术和卫星图像生成的图像地图进行考古调查。这些图像可以通过数字处理来突出地面条件（例如土壤，植被，坡度）的差异，这些差异将考古学家指向最有希望找到灌溉结构的位置。在可以找到灌溉结构的地方，环境变量也提供了一种比较和汇编古代农民决定建造和操作它们的关键因素的方法。为此目的，本项目将建立一个灌溉结构位置的多变量地理信息系统模型。考古学家认为，通过比较遗址位置和非遗址位置，可以确定吸引（和排斥）人类农民的环境变量。非环境原因（社会行为）也在早期农业中发挥了作用，人们希望这些社会行为有助于GIS分析未确定的因素。最后，为了更好地理解社会行为，Harrower将对当今也门传统的小规模灌溉进行民族考古学研究，强调在创新、建设、维护和运营特定类型的水管理结构时的决策和社会约束。中东领先的经济专家Tony艾伦说，中东当代的冲突是争夺水资源。因此，可以从本区域独特历史中的古老挑战和解决办法中汲取重要的经验教训，这些经验教训可能有助于提出和评估今后解决水危机的办法，并进而有助于一些政治危机。这项研究还促进了加拿大、美国和也门研究人员之间的积极工作关系，因为研究合作有助于弥合文化和政治分歧。此外，通过提供研究生培训和正在进行的研究的课堂模式，该项目加强了美国在中东的教育。

Under the supervision of Dr. Joy McCorriston, Michael Harrower will gather and analyze data on the archaeological remains of irrigation in Yemen's remote southern highlands. Archaeologists and historians know well the great Arabian city states that flourished on the caravan traffic in frankincense and myrrh. But the small-scale communities that preceded these incense kingdoms did so with the help of water management technologies that remain poorly known. In order for the southern Arabians to adopt agriculture from adjacent regions, they required a means of harnessing scarce water sources, and they drew on substantive knowledge of local conditions to do so. As we learn more about the development of irrigation technologies in Arabia, we can better understand the mix of environmental and social factors that propelled ancient societies toward the high Arabian civilizations out of which Islam and its charismatic leadership expanded.This research investigates the logistical and organizational requirements of southwest Arabian small-scale spate irrigation, which occurs when farmers concentrate the infrequent flash floods of modest water catchments onto a small patch of arable ground and raise a crop. Such technology-its introduction, adaption, and development-can be examined in the archaeological record by using several strategies in the highlands where catchments are small. First, the researchers will conduct archaeological survey assisted by Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and image maps generated from satellite images. Such images can be digitally manipulated to highlight differences in ground conditions (soil, vegetation, slope, for example), and these differences point archaeologists toward the most promising locations to find irrigation structures. Where irrigation structures can be found, environmental variables also offer a means of comparing and compiling the factors critical in ancient farmers' decisions to build and operate them. For this purpose, the project will construct a multivariate GIS model of irrigation structure locations. Archaeologists assume that by comparing site locations with non site locations, one can identify the environmental variables that attracted (and repelled) human farmers. Non-environmental reasons (social behavior) also played a role in early farming, and one expects that these social behaviors contribute to the factors unidentified by GIS analysis. Finally, to better understand social behavior, Harrower will conduct ethnoarchaeological studies of traditional small-scale irrigation in Yemen today, emphasizing the decisions and social constraints in innovating, building, maintaining, and operating particular types of water-management structures.Tony Allen, a leading economic specialist in the Middle East, has said that contemporary conflicts in the Middle East are fights for water. There are therefore significant lessons to be drawn from ancient challenges and solutions embedded in the unique histories of the region, lessons that may prove useful in proposing and evaluating future solutions to water crisis, and by extension, some political crises. The research also fosters positive working relationships among Canadian, American and Yemeni researchers at a time when research cooperation can help bridge cultural and political divides. Further, by providing graduate training and a classroom model of ongoing research, this project strengthens US education in the Middle East.