Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Landscapes of Pastoral Nomads in Southeastern Turkey

在杰森·乌尔博士的指导下，艾米丽·哈默将研究土耳其东南部Diyarbakýr省过去500年来游牧民族居住的空间组织。研究区位于古美索不达米亚北部边缘，沿底格里斯河位于肥沃平原和侵蚀石灰岩山丘农业边缘地区的交界处。在大约9000年的时间里，中东的经济和社会是由定居的农民和流动的游牧民族组成的。然而，到目前为止，美索不达米亚的考古学家收集的数据几乎完全是关于古代社会中以农业为经济基础的定居部分。游牧游牧营地的短暂痕迹很少在考古记录中幸存下来，因为它们通常被现代农业活动破坏。该研究区域特别重要，因为它保留了营地和周围景观特征的遗迹，如蓄水池、畜栏和洞穴，这些都是至少500年游牧土地利用的结果。这提供了一个独特的机会，可以开始纠正对中东历史有偏见的、“以静坐为中心”的理解。该项目将通过调查一个持久的人类学现象——将自然资源转化为具有社会意义的地方——来促进人类学理论。许多关于空间和地点的研究都集中在与公共和城市空间相关的文化转型上；拟议的研究扩展了这些研究，重点关注过去流动群体通过季节性重新居住和对自然资源的操纵对景观的意义。通过研究水池作为景观中的空间节点，在很长一段时间内引导人们的露营和牧场模式，该项目将有助于讨论人们如何以持久的方式将他们的存在刻在环境中。考古调查和卫星图像工作绘制了一些特征，为游牧牧民冬季土地利用的历时模式提供了证据，包括营地和空间相关的景观特征，如蓄水池、畜栏和洞穴。在项目的当前阶段，分析将侧重于水资源可及性与居住和放牧模式的关系。通过沉积物取心、放射性碳和陆地原位宇宙形成核素测年方法，该项目将确定营地使用和蓄水池形成的相对日期，以评估关于移动定居点和景观演变的假设。该研究对国际合作打捞研究、地理考古学和人类学具有更广泛的意义。由于底格里斯河上的Ilýsu大坝水库即将淹没研究区域，拟议的实地考察和分析将收集有关即将被破坏的特征和景观的数据。合作实地考察、分析和出版将加强美国和土耳其考古学家之间的合作。实地工作将包括培训土耳其和美国的研究生实地方法和地理信息系统技术。研究结果将发表在同行评议的出版物上，并在土耳其和美国的科学会议上发表。地球原位宇宙核素测年是一种地质技术，其考古应用有限，将有助于为考古工具箱增加另一种无机材料测年方法。所提出的方法是新颖的，将有更广泛的地质应用。

Under the supervision of Dr. Jason Ur, Emily Hammer will examine the spatial organization of nomadic pastoral inhabitation over the last 500 years in Diyarbakýr province, southeastern Turkey. The study area is located at the northern edge of ancient Mesopotamia, along the Tigris River at the interface between a fertile plain and an agriculturally marginal area of eroded limestone hills. For approximately 9000 years Middle Eastern economy and society was composed of both sedentary agriculturalists and transhumant pastoral nomads. To date however, Mesopotamian archaeologists have collected data almost exclusively on the sedentary sector of ancient societies with economies based on agriculture. The ephemeral traces of nomadic pastoral encampments rarely survive in the archaeological record because they are typically destroyed by modern farming activities. The study area is of particular importance because it has preserved the remains of both campsites and surrounding landscape features such as cisterns, corrals, and caves resulting from at least 500 years of nomadic pastoral land-use. This provides a unique opportunity to begin to correct biased, "sedentary-centric" understandings of Middle Eastern history. The project will contribute to anthropological theory by investigating an enduring anthropological phenomenon - the transformation of natural resources into socially constructed places of significance. Many studies of space and place have focused on the cultural transformations associated with public and urban spaces; the proposed research extends these studies by focusing on the meaning invested in landscapes by past mobile groups through seasonal re-inhabitation and the manipulation of natural resources. By investigating cisterns as spatial nodes in the landscape orienting people's camping and pasture patterns over long periods of time, the project will contribute to ongoing discussions of how people inscribe their presence on the environment in an enduring way.Archaeological survey and satellite imagery work have mapped features that provide evidence for diachronic patterns in nomadic pastoral winter land-use, including campsites and spatially associated landscape features such as cisterns, corrals, and caves. In the current phase of the project, analyses will focus on how water accessibility relates to inhabitation and herding patterns. Via sediment coring and radiocarbon and terrestrial in-situ cosmogenic nuclide dating methods, the project will determine the relative dates of campsite use and cistern creation in order to evaluate hypotheses about the evolution of mobile settlement and landscape. The research has broader implications for internationally collaborative salvage research, geoarchaeology, and anthropology. As the Ilýsu Dam reservoir on the Tigris River will soon flood the study region, the proposed fieldwork and analysis will gather data on features and landscapes that will soon be destroyed. Collaborative fieldwork, analysis, and publication will strengthen cooperation between American and Turkish archaeologists. Fieldwork will involve training both Turkish and American graduate students in field methodology and GIS technology. Results will be published in peer-reviewed publications and presented at scientific conferences in Turkey and the US. The application of terrestrial in situ cosmogenic nuclide dating, a geological technique whose archaeological applications have been limitedly realized, will help add another method for dating inorganic materials to the archaeological toolkit. The proposed methodology is novel and will have wider geological applications.