Investigating The Relationship Between Environment And Social Complexity

复杂社会的形成--那些有等级组织的社会、政治和经济体系的社会--是人类文化进化的分水岭。一万年前，每个人都生活在平等的社会中;今天，几乎每个人都生活在一个复杂的民族国家中。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，埃里克·琼斯博士将在美国东南部的前接触晚期（公元1000-1600年）遗址进行考古研究，以确定影响该地区复杂社会形成的景观因素。考察复杂性形成的过程和环境有助于确定创造现代条件的长期社会、政治和经济轨迹。虽然考古学家在理解这一过程如何以及为什么发生方面取得了很大进展，但他们仍在学习。特别是，复杂社会在特定地区出现和持续存在的原因很少被研究，因此也没有得到很好的理解。然而，这是一个重要的主题，因为它可以揭示历史和文化进程，这些进程在复杂性方面塑造了过去10，000年的人类历史。具体而言，它可以提高历史和现代人文地理的理解，因为不同复杂性的社会分布影响了殖民时期美洲原住民-欧洲人的互动。此外，它可以提供有关人类与环境的相互作用的信息，在不同的复杂性。东南部，特别是皮埃蒙特，是一个理想的地区，研究复杂性的空间和景观组成部分，因为它是北美少数几个地区同时被复杂和非复杂的社会。此外，这一地区有着悠久的考古研究历史，从十六世纪和十七世纪就有详细的记载。这项为期三年的研究将审查影响不同复杂性社会模式的环境和文化景观特征。它将使用考古发掘和调查相结合，使用历史，地质，地理和环境数据对过去的景观进行建模，以及基于地理信息系统（GIS）的空间分析。研究结果将解释为什么有些地方看到了社会和政治等级的发展，而其他地方则没有。关于更广泛的影响，琼斯博士的研究将是少数几个研究和比较北美非等级社会和等级社会景观的项目之一。了解社会等级制度和相关景观的起源有可能为我们自己的社会结构提供信息，特别是关于与环境的互动。本科生将参与所有级别的研究，包括档案工作，实地考察，人工制品和空间分析，以及结果的介绍和出版。每年琼斯博士和学生将组织公共考古活动，邀请学生，当地居民和当地美洲原住民社区的代表参与有关当地历史，文化历史保护的重要性以及美洲原住民文化和历史的对话。这项研究的信息也将被整合到维克森林人类学博物馆，并将作为一个数字数据库提供给其他研究人员。

The formation of complex societies - those with hierarchically organized social, political, and economic systems - is a watershed occurrence in general human cultural evolution. 10,000 years ago, everyone lived in egalitarian societies; today, almost everyone lives in a complex nation-state. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Eric Jones will conduct archaeological research at Late Precontact (AD 1000-1600) sites in the southeastern United States to determine the landscape factors that influenced the formation of complex societies in this region. Examining the processes and circumstances surrounding how complexity was formed helps to determine the long-term social, political, and economic trajectories that have created modern conditions. Although archaeologists have made great strides in understanding how and why this process occurs, they are still learning. In particular, the reasons why complex societies arose and persisted in specific locations has rarely been studied and is thus not well understood. It is an important topic, however, because it can reveal the historical and cultural processes that have shaped the last 10,000 years of human history with regard to complexity. Specifically, it can improve understanding of historic and modern human geography because the distribution of societies of varying complexity impacted Native American-European interactions during the colonial period. Further, it can provide information about human interactions with the environment in relation to varying complexity.The Southeast, particularly the Piedmont, is an ideal area to study the spatial and landscape components of complexity because it was one of the few areas of North America occupied simultaneously by complex and non-complex societies. Furthermore, this area has a long history of archaeological research and detailed accounts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This three-year study will examine the environmental and cultural landscape features that influenced the patterning of societies of varying complexity. It will do this using a combination of archaeological excavation and survey, modeling of past landscapes using historical, geological, geographic, and environmental data, and geographic information systems (GIS)-based spatial analyses. The results will explain why some locations saw the development of social and political hierarchies and others did not. With regard to broader impacts, Dr. Jones' research will be one of the few projects to examine and compare the landscapes of non-hierarchical and hierarchical societies in North America. Understanding the origins of social hierarchies and related landscapes has the potential to inform about our own social structure, specifically with regards to interactions with the environment. Undergraduates will be involved in all levels of research, including archival work, fieldwork, artifact and spatial analyses, and the presentation and publication of results. Each year Dr. Jones and students will organize public archaeology events inviting students, local residents, and representatives from local Native American communities to engage in conversations about local history, the importance of cultural historic preservation, and Native American cultures and history. Information from this research will also be integrated into the Wake Forest Museum of Anthropology and will be made available as a digital database for other researchers.