Collaborative Research: Ceramic Geography and the Social Formations of the Smoky Hill Phase, east-central Kansas

在国家科学基金会的支持下，研究人员将分析精选的陶瓷组合，以调查北美中原传统(CPT)烟山阶段的社会形态。这个为期18个月的项目将应用详细的陶瓷风格分析和中子激活分析来解决社会组织和相互作用的问题，并将通过对堪萨斯州中部和中北部的36个烟山相点进行放射性碳测年来控制年代。中原地区史前晚期(公元1100？1350年)以新兴的农业经济为特征，随之而来的是技术、聚落和社会组织的变化。在这些维度中，社会组织是最不被理解的。基本的社会单位是经济上自治的家庭，但家庭必然会融入社区。这种晚期的史前改编在该地区真的没有历史上的类似之处。该项目的主要目标是开发一个以经验为基础的模型，以绘制史前晚期社会景观图，并描绘烟雾山阶段人民之间形成的个别社区。该团队将使用陶瓷风格分析作为单个家庭社区从属关系的替代衡量标准。该分析将考察文体变异的多个维度，并将考察文体群体的地理分布。这一分析将通过使用一年生植物物种的广泛放射性碳测年来加强，以确保所分析的材料与相关成分是同时代的。广泛的中子活化分析(NAA)将通过描绘化学成分组并绘制其分布图来评估社区内部和社区之间的相互作用。地理信息系统将成为绘制陶瓷风格群和化学成分群图的重要可视化和分析工具。该项目的学术价值建立在与看待中原地区史前晚期社会组织和一般平原生活方式的传统方式的决裂上。传统的方式依赖于历史的类比，并将社会组织的各个方面具体化，而不是真正暴露出来。然而，当代的理论和方法现在允许通过经验来解决社会组织问题。这项研究的结果将是从一个在很大程度上也是代表性不足的地理区域对这种代表性不足的社会形态的组织情况进行的基线研究。这项研究的更广泛的影响是，它将有助于理论、教育和推广方面的进步。该项目支持有关向粮食生产转型对包括性别在内的社会组织的影响的理论，以及整个中原地区社会变化的年表和结构。本科生和研究生将在烟雾山阶段物质文化的分析以及陶瓷数据和地理信息系统工具的应用方面进行教育和培训。通过界定12世纪至14世纪中原地区一部分人的社区结构，将会更好地理解早期平原农民的社会组织。

With National Science Foundation support, the researchers will analyze curated ceramic assemblages to investigate social formations of the Smoky Hill phase of the Central Plains tradition (CPt) of North America. The 18-month project will apply detailed ceramic style analysis and neutron activation analysis to problems of social organization and interaction, and will control chronology by radiocarbon dating 36 Smoky Hill phase sites in central and north-central Kansas. The late prehistoric period in the Central Plains (cal A.D. 1100?1350) featured an emerging farming economy, with attendant changes in technology, settlement, and social organization. The social organization is the least understood of these dimensions. The basic social unit was the economically autonomous household, but households by necessity were integrated into communities. This late prehistoric adaptation really has no historic analog in the region. The project's primary objective is to develop an empirically based model to map the late prehistoric social landscape and to delineate the individual communities formed among the people of the Smoky Hill phase. The team will use ceramic style analysis as a proxy measure of the community affiliation of individual households. The analysis will examine multiple dimensions of stylistic variation and will examine the geographical distribution of style groups. This analysis will be augmented with extensive radiocarbon dating using annual plant species to ensure that analyzed materials are contemporaneous with the associated component. Extensive neutron activation analysis (NAA) will allow the evaluation of interaction within and among communities by delineating chemical compositional groups and mapping their distribution. GIS will be a critical visual and analytical tool for mapping ceramic style groups and chemical compositional groups. The intellectual merits of the project are grounded in a break with the traditional ways of viewing late prehistoric social organization on the Central Plains and of lifeways on the Plains in general. Traditional ways have relied on historic analogies and have reified rather than truly exposed aspects of social organization. Contemporary theory and method, however, now allow social organization to be addressed empirically. The results of this research will be a baseline study of the organization of this underrepresented type of social formation from a geographical area that has also been largely underrepresented. The broader impacts of the study are that it will contribute to advances in theory, education, and outreach. The project supports theory concerning the effects of the transition to food production on social organization, including gender, as well as the chronology and structure of social change across the Central Plains. Undergraduate and graduate students will be educated and trained in the analysis of Smoky Hill phase material culture and the application of ceramic data and GIS tools to that analysis. By defining the community structure of twelfth through fourteenth century people on one part of the Central Plains, the result will be a better understanding of the social organization of early Plains farmers.