Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Households And Political Transformation During State Formation

密歇根大学的研究人员莱西·卡彭特和乔伊斯·马库斯博士正在调查普通家庭与被称为国家形成的大规模政治变革之间的关系。当代世界有多种政治制度，但大多数也可以被定义为国家。在美国，权力集中在专职政治官员手中的政体，他们拥有专门的军事、决策或行政职位。国家级社会的出现是一种全球性的政治现象，它从根本上改变了领导者和臣民互动的方式，以及政府提取和分配资源的方式。对早期国家的分析与当今社会相关，因为当今世界的大部分地区不仅以国家（或民族国家）为特征，而且其中许多国家都试图扩大对抵制统治和合并的人口的领土控制。然而，如果没有家庭的参与，这些庞大而复杂的政策就无法自我维持或改变，而家庭的劳动和资源是更大系统的基础。Carpenter和Marcus的调查将是第一次对墨西哥瓦哈卡河谷州形成期间的房屋进行研究，也是第一次评估州对家庭经济的影响。考古学处在一个独特的位置，可以提供一个长期的视角：(1)研究缺乏文字记录的社会和时期，(2)研究持续了几个世纪的进程，(3)研究占人口大多数的普通人。该项目将雇用来自墨西哥瓦哈卡州圣Martín蒂尔卡杰特镇的当地工作人员，他们将挖掘房屋。该项目为本科生和研究生提供了新的研究机会，他们将获得一系列挖掘和实验室方法的经验。本研究关注的是家庭与治理机构关系的演变。调查人员将记录家庭在国家形成之前、期间和之后是如何组织起来的，以评估在这个动荡的时代，日常生活中任何变化或连续性的时间和程度。在家庭一级作出的选择可能使领导人能够更好地调动资源，扩大和进一步巩固其权威。一系列经济、社会和仪式的变化与国家的形成有关：社会阶层的增加、税收、全职军事服务、工艺专业化、全职商人阶层、全职牧师等等。家庭可能已经实施了新的战略，以应对这些制度层面的变化。对几个世纪以来居住的家庭的研究将使调查人员能够记录经济，社会和仪式变化的时间，并提供对国家形成的更完整的理解。在Tilcajete政体中，二级国家在与Monte Albán中心的原始国家的敌对中出现，挖掘出的房屋以及每栋房屋内容的清单提供的数据将用于改进我们的模型，即家庭经济如何与更大的政治体系联系在一起，特别是在深刻的政治和经济转型时期。

Researchers Lacey Carpenter and Dr. Joyce Marcus of the University of Michigan are investigating the relationship between ordinary households and a large-scale political transformation known as state formation. The contemporary world has diverse political systems, but most can also be defined as states,i.e., polities with authority concentrated in the hands of full-time political officials who hold specialized military, policy-making, or administrative positions. The emergence of state-level societies is a global political phenomenon that fundamentally changed the way leaders and subjects interact and the way governments extract and distribute resources. Analysis of early states has relevance to present day society because most of today's world is not only characterized by states (or nation-states), but many of these states are attempting to expand their territorial control over populations who resist domination and incorporation. However, these large and complex polities cannot support themselves or change without involvement from the households whose labor and resources are the foundation of larger systems. Carpenter and Marcus's investigation will be the first study of houses during the period of state formation in the Oaxaca Valley, Mexico, and the first to assess what impact the state had on household economy. Archaeology is uniquely situated to provide a long-term perspective (1) on societies and time periods that lack written records, (2) processes that occur over centuries, and (3) on the common people that comprise most of the population. The project will employ a local crew from the town of San Martín Tilcajete in Oaxaca, Mexico who will excavate houses. The project offers new research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students who will acquire experience in an array of excavation and laboratory methods. The research concerns the development through time of the relationship between households and governing institutions. The investigators will document how households were organized before, during, and after state formation to assess the timing and extent of any changes or continuities in daily life during this volatile era. Choices made at the household level may have enabled leaders to better mobilize resources and augment and further consolidate their authority. A suite of economic, social, and ritual changes are associated with state formation: increased social stratification, taxation, full-time military service, craft specialization, full-time merchant classes, full-time priests, among others. Households may have implemented new strategies in reaction to these institutional-level changes. A study of households occupied over multiple centuries will allow investigators to document the timing of economic, social, and ritual changes, and provide a more complete understanding of state formation. The excavation of houses from the Tilcajete polity, where a secondary state emerged in response to hostilities with the pristine state centered at Monte Albán, and the creation of an inventory of the contents of each house provide data that will be used to improve our models of how household economies are tied to larger political systems, particularly during times of profound political and economic transformation.