Middle Mekong Archaeological Project, Phase I: Reconnaissance Survey in Northern Laos

在国家科学基金会考古项目高风险项目的支持下，乔伊斯白色博士和一个国际同事团队将在老挝进行湄公河中部考古项目（MMAP）的第一个实地考察季节。该团队汇集了美国，英国、老挝和泰国的考古学家和地理学家将对琅勃拉邦省的湄公河左岸三条支流进行勘察。目标是找到可能追溯到全新世中期的遗址，大约公元前6000-2000年校准，以便开始获取数据，以测试东南亚大陆农业出现的替代模型。东南亚早期农业出现的时间、机制和后果是研究亚洲史前史的考古学家们激烈争论的话题。关于从北方纬度迁移的作用与土著发展相对的多学科争论涉及历史语言学、古孢粉学、人类、动物和作物遗传学以及传统考古学等学科。MMAP试图纠正这样一个事实，即东南亚大陆全新世中期的现有考古数据，在此期间，该地区发生了从狩猎和采集到农业的过渡，目前在数量和质量上都太差，无法科学地评估正在讨论的替代方案。确定东南亚早期农业发展的时间和性质不仅对文化有影响，这不仅是一个地区的历史，也是为了证明现代全球语言和人口分布是从一些学者认为农业起源的少数地区扩展而来的这一提议的有效性。持“伊甸园”观点的学者认为，东南亚的语言、人口和农业起源于长江流域，那里发现了最早的驯化水稻。然而，东南亚大陆现有的人口学、植物遗传学和人类生物学证据可能不支持这一观点。了解东南亚最初的农业社会是否来自水稻种植的发展所驱动的区域外扩张，植物种植的本地发展可能是多种作物，或者一些过程的组合不仅对评估伊甸园提案很重要。了解如果一个水稻为重点的种植系统，而不是一个多品种的园艺种植系统，东南亚的原始农业regime. Geographical因素表明，没有更好的位置在所有的东南亚寻找证据，在全新世中期生存制度比琅勃拉邦省的变化是了解该地区独特的社会，经济，政治和环境trajectors. Geographical是根本的。琅勃拉邦位于泰国东北部班江文化传统遗址的上游，那里是迄今为止在湄公河流域中部发现的最早的农业社会所在地。琅勃拉邦省也位于分水岭的西侧，越南的东侧在全新世中期见证了生计的变化，越南人声称这涉及到对驯养牲畜的剥削。MMAP探索性调查将提供数据，以帮助规划老挝未来的考古调查，包括挖掘和深入调查。这项研究将在各个层面上影响社会和知识。老挝实际上是一个考古未知的地区，但包括东南亚大陆的内部核心。自第二次世界大战前的殖民时期以来，由于持续的地区冲突和越南战争以来的政治孤立，几乎没有进行过研究。因此，老挝是亚洲大部分地区人类历史知识的基石，因为在过去30年里，泰国等邻国的研究出现了问题。老挝是一个非常贫穷的国家，最近才获得与美国的贸易正常化地位。因此，老挝博物馆和考古部（DOMA）与美国大学之间的联合项目可以对当地考古学家的培训，考古研究和博物馆学基础设施的发展，以及向当地文化资源管理人员转让信息技术和考古方法，理论和知识产生重大影响。

With support from the high risk program of the Archaeology Program of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Joyce White and an international team of colleagues will conduct the first fieldwork season in Laos of the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP). The team brings together U.S., British, Lao, and Thai archaeologists and geographers who will undertake a reconnaissance survey of three left bank tributaries of the Mekong River in Luang Prabang province. The objective is to find sites likely dating to the middle Holocene, roughly 6000-2000 BC calibrated, in order to begin acquiring data to test alternative models for the appearance of agriculture in mainland Southeast Asia. The timing, mechanisms, and ramifications of the emergence of early agriculture in Southeast Asia are hotly debated by archaeologists studying Asian prehistory. Multi-disciplinary arguments over the roles of migration from northern latitudes as opposed to indigenous developments engage disciplines ranging from historical linguistics, palaeopalynology, human, animal, and crop genetics, as well as traditional archaeology. MMAP seeks to redress the fact that existing archaeological data from the middle Holocene in mainland Southeast Asia, during which the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture in this region occurred, are currently too poor in quantity and quality to scientifically evaluate alternative scenarios under discussion.Determination of the timing and nature of the development of early agriculture in Southeast Asia has implications not only for the culture history of one region, but also for the validity of the proposal that modern day global distributions of languages and populations represent expansions from a few regions where some scholars propose that agriculture originated. Scholars with this "Gardens of Eden" view see Southeast Asian languages, populations, and agriculture originating from the Yangtze basin where the earliest domesticated rice has been found. However, existing evidence from demography, plant genetics, and human biology in mainland Southeast Asia may not support the proposal. Knowing if the original agricultural societies in Southeast Asia came from an extraregional expansion driven by the development of rice cultivation, autochthonous developments of plant cultivation perhaps of multiple crops, or some combination of processes is important not just for evaluation of the Gardens of Eden proposal. Knowing if a rice-focused cropping system as opposed to a multi-species horticultural cropping system characterized Southeast Asia's original agricultural regime is fundamental to understanding the region's distinctive social, economic, political, and environmental trajectories.Geographic factors indicate that there is no better location in all of Southeast Asia to seek evidence for changes in middle Holocene subsistence regimes than Luang Prabang province. Luang Prabang is upstream from Ban Chiang cultural tradition sites in northeast Thailand where the earliest agricultural societies so far identified in the middle Mekong basin lie. Luang Prabang province is also on the western side of a divide whose eastern side in Vietnam witnessed subsistence changes during the middle Holocene that the Vietnamese claim involved exploitation of domesticated livestock. The MMAP exploratory survey will provide data to help plan future archaeological investigation in Laos involving excavation and intensive survey.This research will impact society and knowledge at a variety of levels. Laos is virtually an archaeological terra incognita, yet encompasses the inner core of mainland Southeast Asia. Little research has been done since the colonial period before World War II because of ongoing regional conflicts and the country's political isolation since the Vietnam War. Thus Laos holds a keystone for knowledge of human past for a major part of Asia as questions have arisen from research in neighboring countries such as Thailand during the past 30 years. Laos is a very poor country, which only recently received normalized trade status with the United States. Thus joint projects between the Lao Department of Museums and Archaeology (DOMA) and US universities can have major repercussions for training of local archaeologists, development of infrastructure for archaeological research and museology, and transfer of information technology and archaeological method, theory, and knowledge to local cultural resource managers.