Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Archaeology and Behavioral Ecology of Human-Landscape Interaction at Gordion, an Ancient City on the Anatolian Steppe

在John K. Papadopoulos的监督下，John Marston将对位于安纳托利亚（今土耳其）中部的Gordion古城2000多年来的考古植物遗迹进行分析。在这段时间里，戈尔丁是弗里吉亚王国的首都，后来先后被波斯帝国、希腊化希腊帝国、罗马帝国、拜占庭帝国和塞尔柱土耳其帝国统治。该遗址最终在中世纪时期被遗弃。马斯顿的研究重点是文化和环境变化之间的关系，以及个人如何在这些不同的社会和自然环境中做出土地使用决策。研究过去的环境和人类对文化和自然景观变化的反应可以通过研究古代植物遗迹来解决。种子和木材可以通过不完全燃烧作为木炭保存下来，并成为该地区农业和自然植被的指标。自1988年以来，在Gordion已经系统地恢复了碳化的植物遗骸，该项目包括对200多个考古背景的植物遗骸的研究。马斯顿将测试人类行为生态学模型的预期，该模型预测农民和牧民的目标是最大化农业产量，同时最小化生存失败的风险。调查的变量包括考虑耕作与放牧、灌溉与旱地耕作以及饲养与放牧家畜的相对效益。从农作物加工残渣、燃烧的动物粪便和烹饪事故中提取的某些种类的植物遗骸被选为统计分析的代理标记，以测试相互竞争的行为模型。与当代考古证据的文化归属比较将有助于确定文化传播过程是否影响居住在Gordion的移民人口的饮食选择和生存策略。除了对考古学和古代环境的区域研究做出贡献外，这项研究的更广泛影响还包括对安纳托利亚中部土地利用和保护的现行政策的影响，对Gordion考古遗址的介绍的新视角，以及对美国和土耳其考古学学生的培训。这项研究将有助于制定新的戈迪翁遗址管理计划，其中包括努力保护众多受到威胁的墓葬和幸存的原生植被，并旨在向游客展示当地的生态和考古景观。这将提高数千名土耳其游客的教育水平，其中包括许多学童，以及每年访问该遗址的数百名外国游客。作为该项目的一部分，马斯顿除了自己的研究生培训外，还将培训大约20名美国本科生识别和解释考古植物遗迹。该项目的成果将通过在评审期刊上发表、向学术界发表会议报告、在洛杉矶和费城地区以及在土耳其发表公开报告等方式加以传播。

Under the supervision of John K. Papadopoulos, John Marston will undertake the analysis of archaeological plant remains from more than 2000 years of occupation at the ancient city of Gordion in central Anatolia, modern Turkey. Over this span of time, Gordion was the capital of the indigenous Phrygian kingdom, and later was governed successively by the Persian, Hellenistic Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Seljuk Turk empires. The site was finally abandoned in the Medieval period. Marston's research focuses on the relationship between cultural and environmental change, and how individuals made land use decisions within those varied social and natural environments.Research into past environments and human response to changes in the cultural and natural landscapes can be addressed through the study of ancient plant remains. Seeds and wood may be preserved as charcoal through incomplete burning and become indicators of the agricultural and natural vegetation in the area. Carbonized plant remains have been systematically recovered at Gordion since 1988, and this project includes the study of plant remains from more than 200 archaeological contexts. Marston will test the expectations of human behavioral ecology models that predict that farmers and herders aim to maximize agricultural yield while minimizing the risk of subsistence failure. Variables investigated include consideration of the relative benefits of farming versus herding, irrigation versus dryland farming, and foddering versus pasturing of domestic animals. Certain classes of botanical remains derived from crop processing debris, burned animal dung, and cooking accidents distinguished archaeologically are chosen as proxy markers for statistical analyses to test competing behavioral models. Comparison with contemporary archaeological evidence for cultural affiliation will help determine whether cultural transmission processes affect diet choice and subsistence strategies for immigrant populations residing at Gordion.In addition to the contribution this research makes to regional studies of archaeology and ancient environment, broader impacts of this research include implications for current policies of land use and conservation in central Anatolia, new perspectives for presentation of the archaeological site of Gordion, and training for archaeology students in the US and Turkey. This research will contribute to a new site management plan for Gordion that includes efforts to protect the numerous threatened burial tumuli and surviving patches of native vegetation, and aims to present the local ecological and archaeological landscapes to visitors. This will improve education of the thousands of Turkish visitors, including many school children, and hundreds of foreign tourists who visit the site every year. As part of the project, Marston will train approximately 20 US undergraduate students in the identification and interpretation of archaeological plant remains, in addition to his own graduate training. The results of this project will be disseminated through publication in refereed journals and conference presentations to the academic community, and through public presentations in the Los Angeles and Philadelphia areas, as well as in Turkey.