Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Exchange, Ritual, and Emergent Social Complexity in the Late Archaic Western Great Lakes

社交网络和交易如何将遥远的人群组合成有意义的社会实体？这些网络如何影响社会和经济的不平等和复杂性？社交网络将遥远社会中的个人联系起来，提供获得专业物质产品、仪式知识、资源、劳动力和/或婚姻伴侣的途径。网络通常是通过贸易发展和表达的，其中物质商品作为“礼物”交换，具有宗教或精神重要性的物品，或根据个人之间关系的性质交换商品。交换关系产生义务、债务和责任。网络将遥远的群体整合为更大的社会实体，允许有联系的个人提高他们的社会地位，这是“富人变得更富”现象的早期表现。随着人们与全球化的挑战作斗争，这些问题影响着今天的世界，但它们既不是新的，也不是现代世界所独有的。在我们的过去，人们一直在与这些问题作斗争；尤其是在小规模社会放弃其平等主义社会契约并形成更大、更复杂的社会和政治机构的时期。在社会科学中，考古学具有考察长期社会变迁的优势。虽然社交网络在我们这个全球化的世界中很重要，但从更长远的角度来看，彻底理解它们在社会复杂性和不平等的最初发展中所起的作用是有益的。本研究考察了三千多年前北美五大湖西部社会网络的发展，以及它们在社会复杂性和不平等的早期基础中所起的作用。在安德鲁·达夫（Andrew Duff）博士的指导下，马克·希尔（Mark Hill）将通过分析用于石器和铜器的原材料来确定它们的地质来源，并绘制它们随后的分布，从而记录这些古代网络的范围。来自太平间的文物将被用来评估这些材料的社会价值，并记录社会价值物品、网络和社会地位之间的关系。结合起来，这些方法将提供社会网络在不断增长的社会差异和更大、更复杂的社会实体的发展中的作用的详细检查。岩石和化学成分分析以前被应用于追踪货物交换。然而，将这种公认的分析方法与用于确定交换物品的社会价值的太平间分析相结合，可以提高我们观察史前社会网络的能力，并提供必要的细节，以观察过去仪式和政治经济的运作。在完成论文后，这项工作还将提供对社会复杂性起源的见解，并将帮助社会科学家和公众更好地理解贸易、交换和不平等的本质。今天，贸易在国际范围内运作，然而，进入社会网络和社会权力的原则与过去的运作方式大致相同。通过在小范围内研究这个问题，人们可以研究具体的因素，从而深入了解这些系统导致或加剧社会经济不平等的方式

How do social networks and trade function to combine distant populations into meaningful social entities? How do these networks affect issues of social and economic inequality and complexity? Social networks connect individuals in distant societies, providing access to specialized material goods, ritual knowledge, resources, labor, and/or marriage partners. Networks are often developed and expressed through trade, where material goods are exchanged as "gifts," items of religious or spiritual importance, or commodities depending on the nature of the relationship between individuals. Exchange relationships create obligations, debt, and responsibilities. Networks integrate distant groups into larger social entities, permitting individuals with connections to improve their social position an early expression of the "rich get richer" phenomenon. These issues affect the world today as people struggle with the challenges of globalization, yet they are neither new nor exclusive to the modern world. People have struggled with these issues throughout our past; most notably during periods when small-scale societies abandoned their egalitarian social contracts and formed larger, more complex social and political institutions.Among the social sciences, archaeology has the advantage of examination of social change over long periods of time. While social networks are important in our globalizing world, a thorough understanding of their role in the initial development of social complexity and inequality benefits from a longer temporal perspective. This research examines the development of social networks over three thousand years ago in the western Great Lakes of North America, and their role in the early foundations of social complexity and inequality. Under the direction of Dr. Andrew Duff, Mark Hill will document the extent of these ancient networks by analyzing raw materials used for stone tools and copper artifacts to locate their geological sources, and to map their subsequent distribution. Artifacts from mortuary contexts will be used to assess the social value of these materials, and to document the relationship between access to socially valued goods, networks, and social position. Combined, these approaches will provide a detailed examination of the role of social networks in growing social distinctions and the development of larger and more complex social entities. Lithic and chemical compositional analysis has previously been applied to tracing the exchange of goods. However, coupling this accepted analytical method with mortuary analysis used to determine the social value of exchange goods improves our ability to observe prehistoric social networks with the detail necessary to observe the functioning of past ritual and political economies. Resulting in the completion of a dissertation, this work will also provide insight into the origins of social complexity and will help social scientists and the public to better understand the nature of trade, exchange, and inequality. Today, trade operates on an international scale, yet the principles of access to social networks and social power function in much the same way as they did in the past By examining this issue at small scales, one can study specific elements to develop insight into the ways in which these systems lead to, or enhance socioeconomic inequalities