Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Salt and Society: Late Woodland and Mississippian Interaction in Southwest Alabama

在伊恩·w·布朗博士的监督下，阿什利·杜马斯将在阿拉巴马州西南部的汤比格比河谷下游挖掘一个史前盐生产遗址。大约从公元800年到1500年早期，该地区的天然含盐温泉是集中文化占领的场景。然而，人们对住在那里的人知之甚少，只知道他们经常把盐水煮成盐。杜马斯女士将在斯廷普森盐沼进行挖掘，并分析回收的陶器，以揭示盐在这些人的生活方式中的重要性和作用。对盐作为膳食补充剂的需求已被证明与对种植植物作为食物的依赖相对应。几位学者推测，阿拉巴马州西南部的盐碱地曾被蒙德维尔（Moundville）部落的成员渗透到北部，后来又被博特克里克（Bottle Creek）部落的人渗透到南部。因此，这个项目背后的一个假设是，蒙德维尔和博特克里克酋长领地的人们需要盐来补充他们以玉米为基础的饮食。由于博特克里克酋长统治着该地区的大部分贸易，他们可能对生产盐并控制其分销特别感兴趣。除了对职业顺序进行排序外，本研究还旨在将盐生产的性质与蒙德维尔和博特克里克酋长领地的社会经济需求联系起来。最近对阿拉巴马州盐碱地的研究认为，没有证据表明在阿拉巴马州西南部有蒙德维尔或波特溪相关文化的发展。言下之意是，如果它不是在本土发展起来的，那么它就必须来自其他地方。盐可能是吸引这个地区的重要因素。该项目对人类学、考古学等学科具有重要意义。首先，它考察了一个地区的文化变化是如何通过殖民化而不是就地独立发展发生的。由于人类对某种资源的渴望而发生的接触，如果这种资源没有作为考古记录的一部分保存下来，就很难进行调查。因此，这项研究对考古研究的重要性在于，它增加了关于测量史前文化中盐重要性的方法的一小部分文献。其次，在斯廷普森盐碱地的挖掘和对发现的文物的分析将为其他希望确定外国对当地资源的兴趣性质的考古学家提供一个模型。这项研究还将在几个方面使更多的受众受益。一项公众宣传计划已经在进行中，包括向当地考古和历史学会进行介绍，在博物馆举办展览，以及一个志愿者项目。参与项目现场工作部分的人员将获得考古发掘和实验室分析方面的经验。将至少在两个区域会议和一个国家会议上向专业听众传播研究成果，并在同行评议的期刊上发表。这些努力提高了人们对盐碱地独特的地质特征、它们在该地区文化史上千年的重要性以及科学在揭示这一切方面的作用的认识。

Under the supervision of Dr. Ian W. Brown, Ashley Dumas will excavate a site of prehistoric salt production in the lower Tombigbee River valley of southwest Alabama. Natural saline springs in the region were the scenes of concentrated cultural occupation from about A.D. 800 to the early 1500's. However, little is known about the people who lived there, except that they often were occupied by boiling brine into salt. Ms. Dumas will excavate at the Stimpson saline and analyze recovered pottery in order to expose the importance and role of salt in the lifeways of these people. The need for salt as a dietary supplement has been shown to correspond to a reliance on cultivated plants for food. Several scholars have speculated that the southwest Alabama salines were infiltrated by members of the Moundville chiefdom to the north and, later, by people from the Bottle Creek chiefdom to the south. Thus, an assumption underlying this project is that people from the Moundville and Bottle Creek chiefdoms needed salt to supplement their corn-based diets. Because it dominated much of the trade in the region, the Bottle Creek chiefdom may have been particularly interested in producing salt and controlling its distribution. In addition to ordering the sequence of occupations, this study aims to correlate the nature of salt production with the socioeconomic needs of the Moundville and Bottle Creek chiefdoms. Recent research in the region of the Alabama salines argues that there is no evidence for an in-place development of Moundville or Bottle Creek-related culture in southwest Alabama. The implication is that if it did not develop indigenously, then it had to come from elsewhere. Salt may have been an important attraction to the region. This project has great significance for the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology. First, it examines how cultural change in a region may have occurred through colonization rather than in-place, independent development. Contact that occurs due to human desire for a certain resource is difficult to investigate when that resource does not survive as part of the archaeological record. Thus, the importance of this study for archaeological research is that it adds to a small body of literature regarding methods for measuring the importance of salt in prehistoric cultures. Second, excavations at the Stimpson saline and analysis of the recovered artifacts will provide a model for other archaeologists who wish to determine the nature of foreign interest in a local resource. This research also will benefit a larger audience in several ways. A program of public outreach, which is already underway, includes presentations to local archaeological and historical societies, a museum exhibit, and a volunteer program. Participants in the field work portion of the project will gain experience in archaeological excavation and laboratory analysis. Dissemination of research to a professional audience will occur in at least two regional and one national conference and publication in peer-reviewed journals. These efforts raise awareness of the unique geological features that are the salines, their millennial importance in the culture history of the area, and the role of science in bringing it all to light.