HRRA: Emergency Regional Studies in the Heartland of the Yunnanese Bronze Age: Archaeological Survey in SW China

在国家科学基金的支持下，姚爱丽丝博士、亨利·赖特博士和云南省文物考古研究所将在中国对滇池盆地进行为期一季的考古研究。该团队汇集了美国和中国的考古专家，调查了强大的青铜时代政体的起源，该政体被称为滇国。滇国位于保护完好的高海拔滇池盆地，是一个强大的独立政体，占据着古代中国与东南亚大陆之间的重要交通节点。在古代中国和东南亚地区战争和贸易不断升级的动态时期，滇国及其周边政治似乎取得了突出的成就。目前的考古研究试图确定这些地区的政治发展可能对滇池盆地的社会政治结构产生了什么影响。这种社会政治复杂性是由中国政府直接引入的，还是受到与其近邻的竞争和贸易的推动？只有恢复滇池青铜时代的占领遗址，才能解开滇国神秘的起源。这个项目提供了有史以来第一次在这一地区寻找可能的史前占领的国际努力。解决滇源的性质需要对滇湖盆地内社会政治发展的时机有一个坚实的理解。该项目的目标是1)从考古田野调查和卫星图像中确定史前占领遗址，2)提供这些发现遗址的辐射日期，这将有助于制定滇国的年表，3)收集表面和暴露的切割的材料，以记录这些遗址的文化活动性质。该调查方法采用了在引进机械化农业之前拍摄的高分辨率卫星图像，以指导在目标地区进行受控实地调查，显示现场恢复的希望更大。这种探索性的调查可能会绘制出从史前开始到青铜时代政体繁盛时期的滇区起源图。如果成功，这项研究的直接学术价值将是在中国地区发现史前占领遗址，那里几乎没有遗址被记录下来。这些遗址的恢复将提供必要的时空框架，以记录中国这个鲜为人知的地区的社会政治发展。这一基础工作将刺激古代世界次级地层工作模型的发展。除了发现古滇址的科学价值外，该项目预计还将通过云南省的首次考古合作促进美国和中国之间的学术交流，从而产生更广泛的影响。此外，开发具有成本效益的同时非侵入性的侦察方法可以很容易地适应公共考古和遗产管理的需要。

With National Science Foundation Support, Dr. Alice Yao, Dr. Henry Wright and the Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in China will conduct one season of archaeological research on the Lake Dian Basin. The team brings together U.S. and Chinese specialists in archaeology to investigate the origins of a powerful Bronze Age polity known as the as the Dian Kingdom. Located in the well-protected high altitude basin of Lake Dian, the Dian Kingdom emerged as a formidable independent polity occupying an important communication node between ancient China and mainland Southeast Asia. The Dian Kingdom and neighboring polities appeared to have achieved prominence during a dynamic period of escalating interregional warfare and trade across ancient China and Southeast Asia. Current archaeological research seeks to determine the impact these regional political developments may have had on the sociopolitical formations in the Lake Dian basin. Was this sociopolitical complexity directly introduced by Chinese states or motivated by competition and trade with its immediate neighbors? Only the recovery of Bronze Age occupation sites in the Lake Dian can address the enigmatic origins of the Dian Kingdom. This project provides a first-ever international effort to search for possible prehistoric occupations in this region.Solving the nature of Dian origins requires a solid understanding of the timing of sociopolitical developments within the Lake Dian basin. The goals of the project are 1) to identify prehistoric occupation sites from archaeological field survey and satellite imagery, 2) to provide radiometric dates from these discovered sites that would contribute toward a chronology for the Dian polity, and 3) to collect materials from surfaces and exposed cuts to document the nature of cultural activities at these sites. The survey approach employs high resolution satellite imagery taken before the introduction of mechanized agriculture to guide a controlled field survey in target areas showing greater promise of site recovery. This exploratory investigation can potentially chart the genesis of the Dian region from its prehistoric beginnings to its florescence as a Bronze Age polity. If successful, the direct intellectual merit of the research will be the discovery of prehistoric occupation sites in a region of China where few sites have ever been documented. The recovery of these sites would provide the spatio-temporal framework necessary to chronicle the socio-political developments of a poorly understood region in China. This groundwork would then stimulate the development of working models for secondary formations in the ancient world. Beyond the scientific value of discovering ancient Dian sites, the project anticipates broader impact by promoting scholarly exchange between the US and China through this first time archaeological collaboration in Yunnan province. In addition, the development of cost-effective reconnaissance methods that are simultaneously non-intrusive can be easily adapted to fit the needs of public archaeology and heritage management.