High Risk: Deltaic Resilience and the Genesis of Mesopotamian Cities (Iraq)

在国家科学基金会的支持下。Jennifer Pournelle， Carrie Hritz和Jennifer Smith将对底格里斯河-幼发拉底河冲冲性低地进行侦察，以调查湿地资源对美索不达米亚南部城市的出现和发展的贡献，这是世界上最早和最古老的城市中心地带。与伊拉克旅游和古物部的代表一起，该小组将(1)对先前挖掘的遗址进行勘测，以确定地质考古数据收集的地点；(2)评估巴士拉大学地质学系的样品存储和分析的物理能力；(3)与巴士拉的同事一起，探索新进入的地区，并选择特定的地点进行地质考古取芯和地震成像。这个地区包括一个刚刚发现的遗迹景观，包括超过4000公顷的土地，现在已经干涸，密集的建筑地基，田地和以前淹没在Hammar湖下的运河。恢复哈马沼泽现在是国家的高度优先事项，如果不迅速采取行动，在该区域开展工作的机会之窗将会关闭。该团队将与教师、政府官员、后勤和安全人员会面，以准备详细的计划，起草支持合同，获得必要的许可，选择地点，并收集试点数据，以便向国家科学基金会提交一份完整的提案。预期的后续研究将包括一个多年的、多国的地质考古、地貌学和民族考古调查和挖掘项目，旨在快速收集必要的证据，以评估伊拉克南部三角洲景观在公元前5 - 3千年期间人类与环境的相互作用，当时那里出现了城市文明。伊拉克南部的底格里斯河-幼发拉底河三角洲是5000多年来城市持续存在的地方。虽然新的研究表明，当代的原始城市政体出现在叙利亚北部和伊朗西南部的平原上，但这些政体并没有表现出伊拉克冲积低地出现的城市中心那样强劲的长寿。现有证据表明，南部冲积层的居民从他们处于一个不断推进的三角洲系统中获得了巨大的财富和交通优势，即使在剧烈的气候波动周期中，三角洲系统也提供了各种丰富的资源。这种三角洲的弹性，是假设在美索不达米亚南部持续的城市化过程中，通过多种和多元的，人类相互作用的系统性变化和他们不断变化的环境。该奖项将启动一个研究项目来验证这一假设。这个项目在整个海湾地区发展合作努力方面具有很大潜力。与巴士拉大学（University of Basrah）合作，该项目有望为新一代伊拉克教师和研究生搭建桥梁。研究结果将为其他三角洲地区/政策的比较研究提供基础，如印度河流域（哈拉潘）、秘鲁沿海地区（卡尔-苏佩、奇穆）、韦拉克鲁斯（奥尔梅克）和埃及，在这些地区，尼罗河三角洲的取心项目表明，最早、最复杂的定居点聚集在三角洲湿地内，它们的生产力对国家的出现至关重要。

With support from the National Science Foundation Drs. Jennifer Pournelle, Carrie Hritz and Jennifer Smith will conduct a reconnaissance of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial lowlands in order to investigate the contribution of wetland resources to the emergence and growth of cities in southern Mesopotamia, the earliest and longest-lived urban heartland in the world. With representatives from the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the team will (1) conduct reconnaissance of previously excavated sites, in order to identify loci for geoarchaeological data collection (2) assess the University of Basrah Department of Geology's physical capacity for sample storage and analysis, and (3) with Basrah colleagues, explore newly accessible areas and select specific locations for geoarchaeological coring and seismological imaging. This area includes a just-discovered relict landscape comprising over 4,000 hectares of now-dry, densely packed building foundations, fields, and canals previously submerged beneath Lake Hammar. Restoration of the Hammar marshes is now a high national priority and if quick action is not taken, the window of opportunity for conducting work in this region will close. The team will meet with faculty, government officials, and logistics and security personnel in order to prepare detailed plans, draft support contracts, obtain necessary permits, select locations, and collect pilot data toward a fully developed proposal for submission to NSF. Envisioned subsequent research will include a multi-year, multi-national program of geoarchaeological, geomorphological, and ethnoarchaeological survey and excavation aimed at rapid collection of evidence essential to assessing millennial-scale human-environment interaction in the deltaic landscape of southern Iraq during the 5th - 3rd millennia BC, when urban civilization arose there.The Tigris-Euphrates delta of southern Iraq is the locus of a continuous urbanpresence over five millennia. While new research indicates that contemporary proto-urban polities arose in the plains of northern Syria and southwestern Iran, those polities did not exhibit the robust longevity of the urban centers that emerged in Iraq's alluvial lowlands. Available evidence suggests that populations of the southern alluvium drew significant wealth and transportation advantage from their situation in a prograding deltaic system that provided varied and abundant resources even through cycles of dramatic climatic fluctuation. This deltaic resiliency, it is hypothesized sustained urbanizing processes in southern Mesopotamia through multiple, and multivariate, systemic changes in humans interactions with each other and their shifting environment. This award will launch a research program to test this hypothesis. This project has high potential for developing cooperative efforts throughout the Gulf region. With the University of Basrah, the project will, hopefully, build bridges to a new generation of Iraqi faculty and graduate students. Results will provide a basis for comparative studies of regions/ polities in other deltaic contexts such as the Indus Valley (Harrapan), coastal Peru (Caral-Supe, Chimu), Veracruz (Olmec), and Egypt, where coring programs in the Nile delta have shown that the earliest, most complex settlements coalesced within deltaic wetlands and their productivity was essential to state emergence.