Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Changing Technologies and Transformations in the Value of Metalwork During the Bronze Age in Samara, Russia

在Michael Dietler博士的指导下，David Peterson将通过对他在萨马拉（位于欧亚西部草原的俄罗斯行政区域）考古实地工作中收集的材料进行深入分析，发展史前金属制品的社会史。早在公元前5000年至4500年，该地区就开始进行金属加工。当地研究人员得出结论，在青铜时代（约公元前3500-1000年），与畜牧业一起，冶金业提供了一种主要的谋生方式，通过生产一种可以交换食物和其他商品的商品。萨马拉河谷将该地区与乌拉尔山脉的丰富矿藏连接起来，而伏尔加河则通过里海及其西部海岸线将该地区与高加索地区的砷铜资源连接起来，里海及其西部海岸线在青铜时代中期被用于欧亚西部草原。这些因素使萨马拉成为研究早期金属技术和金属制品在古代欧亚社会中的作用的理想场所。彼得森在萨马拉东北部的古代铜矿开采痕迹附近进行了实地调查和测试挖掘，记录了该地区青铜时代定居的第一个证据。他将在牛津大学材料系接受金相学、波长色散光谱法（WDS）和能量色散光谱法（WDS）方面的培训，分析来自萨马拉的100多件金属制品和生产碎片的样本，以及来自高加索东北部的早期青铜时代金属制品的比较样本。他的分析将考察金属工人在创造颜色、形状、硬度和耐用性等特征时所使用的技术和材料的组合，以及金属技术在青铜器时代的变化。这将与金属制品在身份表征中的社会用途以及在这些文物被发现的葬礼中的价值仪式表达的检查相结合。因此，该项目将展示一种创新的考古学方法来研究史前物质文化的价值，这通常被认为只是稀缺和远离原材料的功能，或者是考古学无法获得的难以捉摸的品质。对彼得森在野外工作中收集的材料进行动物分析和AMS放射性碳定年，将为研究冶金经济和畜牧经济之间的关系奠定基础，并将更准确地确定这些活动发生的时期。从这项研究中发展出来的博士论文将把相关的物质文化和社会理论纳入古代物质文化和技术的研究方法中，这将引起考古学、人类学和其他社会科学领域的研究人员的广泛兴趣。它将增强目前对欧亚大草原的史前知识，这是古代世界相互作用的关键领域，在美国仍然知之甚少。将这些发现传播给美国、俄罗斯和达吉斯坦的研究人员将提高这些国家学者之间的理解与合作水平。

Under the supervision of Dr. Michael Dietler, David Peterson will develop a social history of prehistoric metalwork through intensive analysis of materials gathered during his archaeological fieldwork in Samara, a Russian administrative district in the western Eurasian steppes. Metalworking was first practiced in this region by 5000/4500 BC. Local researchers have concluded that during the Bronze Age (circa 3500-1000 BC), along with pastoralism, metallurgy provided a principal way of making a living by producing a commodity that could be exchanged for food and other goods. The Samara River Valley links the region to extensive ore deposits in the Ural Mountains, while the Volga River connects it to sources of arsenical copper in the Caucasus, by way of the Caspian Sea and its western shoreline, which was utilized in the western Eurasian steppes by the Middle Bronze Age. These factors have made Samara an ideal setting for an investigation of early metal technology and the role of metalwork in ancient Eurasian societies.Peterson conducted a field survey and test excavations near traces of ancient copper mining in northeastern Samara, which recorded the first evidence for the Bronze Age settlement of the area. He will gain training in metallography, wavelength dispersive spectrometry (WDS) and energy dispersive spectrometry (WDS) at the Department of Materials, Oxford University, in the analysis of samples from over 100 pieces of metalwork and production debris from Samara, together with comparative samples of Early Bronze Age metalwork from the northeastern Caucasus. His analysis will examine the combinations of techniques and materials that metalworkers used in creating characteristics such as color, form, hardness, and durability from which the value of their products was arguably derived, and how metal technology changed over the course of the Bronze Age. This will be joined with an examination of the social uses of metalwork in representations of identity, and ceremonial expressions of value, in the burials in which these artifacts were found. The project will thereby demonstrate an innovative archaeological approach to the value of prehistoric material culture, which is often considered to be simply a function of scarcity and distance from raw materials, or an elusive quality that is inaccessible to archaeology. Faunal analysis and AMS radiocarbon dating of materials Peterson collected in his fieldwork will create the basis for examining the relationship between metallurgical and pastoral economies, and will more precisely determine the period in which these activities took place.The doctoral dissertation that is developed from this research will incorporate relevant material culture and social theory in an approach to ancient material culture and technology, which will be of broad interest to researchers in archaeology, anthropology, and other areas of the social sciences. It will enhance current knowledge of the prehistory of the Eurasian steppes, a pivotal area of interactions in the ancient world which is still poorly understood in the US. The dissemination of these findings to researchers in the US, Russia and Dagestan will increase the level of understanding and cooperation between scholars in these countries.