Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Investigating Restricted Knowledge in the Reproduction of Precontact Coast Salish Lithic Traditions

随着小规模社会中社会不平等的出现，人们学习技术技能的方式是否会发生根本性的变化？在科林·格里尔博士的指导下，华盛顿州立大学的亚当·N·罗拉博将利用现有的考古研究藏品进行研究，考察萨利什海(华盛顿州西北部和不列颠哥伦比亚省西南部)过去4000年的遗址。研究社会不平等和领导层出现的考古学家经常检查被认为是酋长和精英使用或控制的声望交换物品，如异国情调的玉石、假牙贝壳、火山玻璃、土著铜器和磨石碗。这项研究采取了一种不同但值得称赞的方法，考察了狩猎和钓鱼等日常活动中使用的石器，以确定在西北海岸出现大型定居村庄、资源所有权制度和集约储存经济后，它们的制造发生了怎样的变化。中心假设是，某些工具技术将变得不那么可变，因为在出现更具结构性的社会不平等体系后，生产这些技术所需的知识变得更加严格地由精英控制。在更广泛的背景下，这个项目考察了知识是如何在小规模社会中生产和管理的，以及知识控制随着社会不平等程度的增加而发生变化的方式。这个项目的重点是西北海岸的石器技术，这将进一步了解技术工艺培训的生产和复制在这些社会中是如何受到限制的。了解知识是如何产生和控制的，对于理解社会不平等如何以遗传形式变得根深蒂固至关重要。尽管人类学家长期以来一直在研究社会不平等的出现和资源的控制，但这些根本的社会变革对社会学习的影响，以及知识本身如何代表一种受控制的资源，还没有得到系统的研究。基于口头传统，西北海岸社会的许多形式的知识都受到控制，包括歌曲、故事和资源聚集地点。如果手工艺技能成为一种受控资源，那么石器的风格应该更加统一，因为随着时间的推移，知识更多地局限于精英。有限的手艺知识意味着更少的教师，随着教师的减少，潜在风格的池也会更少。随着时间的推移，这种转变应该在考古记录中表现得很明显。石器可以为人们过去是如何学习的提供强有力的证据，因为它们需要高度的技能和知识来生产。本项目将研究碎石和磨石工具，因为它们都有独特的生产限制和功能应用，因此将允许确定制造过程中使用的材料和生产中使用的知识受到限制的程度所造成的差异。将进行检查的考古遗址包括过去4000年的贝类和村落。这些工具收藏在西蒙·弗雷泽大学、不列颠哥伦比亚大学、西华盛顿大学、伯克博物馆和皇家不列颠哥伦比亚省博物馆。将分析研究地理范围内所有传统上用作刀、箭、矛和鱼叉的碎石和研磨石器，重点分析这些工具的弯曲区域。根据这些标准，总共将审查70个遗址，样本大小为3600件文物。通过检查这些收藏产生的数据的分辨率将高于之前的任何研究，因此将提供萨利什海随时间和空间变化的社会学习过程的详细视图。了解社会不平等对日常实践的影响仍然是人类学最重要的贡献之一。这项研究将对这个更大的问题做出小小但具体的贡献。更具体地说，该项目提供了一个机会，探讨在小规模社会中掌握石器生产的传统知识的方式，并有助于更好地了解传统知识的传播形式和资源管理做法。这项研究的主要目的是通过考古数据重建过去石器传统的学习过程，突出过去和现在知识之间的联系，并展示考古可以为重建土著社区传统上如何生产、消费和传承知识做出有意义的贡献。

Does the way people learn technical craft skills fundamentally change with the appearance of social inequality in small scale societies? Under the direction of Dr. Colin Grier, Adam N. Rorabaugh of Washington State University will conduct research using existing archaeological research collections, to examine sites from the past 4,000 years in the Salish Sea (Northwestern Washington and Southwestern British Columbia). Archaeologists studying the emergence of social inequality and leadership have often examined prestige exchange items thought to have been used or controlled by chiefs and elites such as exotic jade, dentalia shells, volcanic glass, native coppers, and ground stone bowls. Taking a different but complimentary approach, this research examines stone tools used for every-day activities such as hunting and fishing to determine how their manufacture changed after the emergence of large sedentary villages, systems of resource ownership, and intensive storage economies on the Northwest Coast. The central hypothesis is that certain tool technologies will become less variable because the knowledge needed to produce them became more tightly controlled by elites after the emergence of more structured systems of social inequality.In a broader context, this project examines how knowledge is produced and managed in small scale societies, and the ways in which control of knowledge changes with increasing social inequality. The focus of this project on stone tool technologies of the Northwest Coast will further understanding of how the production and reproduction of technical craft training was restricted in these societies. Learning how knowledge is produced and controlled is critical to understanding how social inequality becomes entrenched in hereditary forms.Although anthropologists have long studied the emergence of social inequality and the control of resources, the impacts these fundamental societal transformations have had for social learning, and how knowledge itself represents a controlled resource, have been less systematically examined. Based on oral traditions, many forms of knowledge in Northwest Coast societies are controlled including songs, stories, and resource gathering locations. If craft skills became a controlled resource, there should be increased uniformity in the styles of stone tools as knowledge was more restricted to elites through time. Restricted craft knowledge means fewer teachers, and with fewer teachers there would be a smaller pool of potential styles. This shift should be evident through time in the archaeological record. Stone tools can provide strong evidence for how people learned in the past as they require a high degree of skill and knowledge to produce. Both chipped stone and ground stone tools will be examined in this project, as they each have unique production constraints as well as functional applications, and therefore will allow for the identification of variation caused by both the materials used in their manufacture and the degree to which knowledge used in their production was restricted.Archaeological sites to be examined include shell middens and villages dating from the past 4,000 years. The tool collections are housed at Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, Western Washington University, the Burke Museum, and Royal British Columbia Museum. All chipped and ground stone tools traditionally used as knives, arrows, spears, and harpoons within the geographic scope of the study will be analyzed, focusing on the hafting areas of these tools. Based on these criteria, a total of 70 sites will be examined, with a sample size of 3,600 artifacts. The data generated through the examination of these collections will be at a resolution higher than any previous study, and so will provide a detailed view of social learning processes over time and space in the Salish Sea.Understanding the impact of social inequality on every day practices remains one of anthropology's most important contributions. This study will makes a small but concrete contribution to this larger question. More specifically, this project provides an opportunity to explore the ways in which traditional knowledge of stone tool production was held in small scale societies, and contributes to a greater understanding of forms of transmission of traditional knowledge and resource management practices. The key aim of this study, reconstructing the learning processes of past stone tool traditions through archaeological data, will highlight the connections between past and present knowledge, and demonstrate the meaningful contributions archaeology can make towards reconstructing how knowledge in indigenous communities was traditionally produced, consumed, and conveyed down generations.