Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Role of Status in the Maintenance of Complex Society

研究人员希望更好地了解大型社区出现和发展背后的动力，这些社区一直是将地区人口连接到一体化社会的中心。这种社区最早出现在8000年前的世界许多地方，并成为规模更大、组织模式非常复杂的社会的基础，当今世界大多数人口生活在这些社会中。集中在这些早期中心的活动种类因地区不同而有很大差异。在某些情况下，一个区域的家庭之间提高手工艺专业化程度和经济相互依存度似乎至关重要。在其他情况下，宗教信仰和仪式活动是最重要的。在其他案例中，冲突、军事防御和进攻似乎扮演了主要角色。在不同的组合中，这些社会关系和其他社会关系经常造成几种强烈的不平等，社会是围绕这些不平等来组织的。究竟特定的模式是如何在不同的地方得到强调的，以及它们是如何导致不同程度和种类的社会不平等的，人们并没有很好地理解。尤其是在社会不平等日益加剧的情况下，这种不平等并不是建立在人民生产活动、财富和生活水平的差异上。这个项目将探索这样一种可能性，即在相对激烈的冲突局势中，战争中的领导人获得相当的威望和更广泛的权威，并成为更大社区的社会重心。正如研究人员经常设想的那样，这样的发展道路会导致这些领导人加强经济控制和财富积累，从而使他们能够扩大自己的社会和政治权力。公元前2000年左右，乌拉尔南部的辛塔什塔-彼得罗夫卡社会迅速崛起，这为研究这一推理提供了一个绝佳的机会。与小型、紧凑、戒备森严的定居点相关的精心制作的战士坟墓表明了战争领导人的社会重要性，但人们对他们显然领导的社区的性质和组织知之甚少。人们已经研究了小防御区内拥挤的住宅，但居民数量非常少，可能只代表了这些政体地区人口的一部分。之前的研究未能找到在戒备森严的中心周围地区存在其他腹地社区的太多证据。但就在设防中心的围墙外，很少有人研究的考古遗迹可能代表着这些社区的一个重要的额外组成部分。这项研究将以这些遗骸为目标，重建它们所代表的活动、地位和生活水平，并将它们与防御工事内的人的活动、地位和生活水平进行比较。这将揭示出，战争领导人是像理论上的那样，承担了更广泛的社会和经济角色，获得了声望和财富，还是更平等的基础支撑了社会。

Researchers want to understand better the dynamics behind the emergence and development of large communities that have served as centers binding the populations of regions into integrated societies. Such communities first emerged as much as 8,000 years ago in many parts of the world and served as the foundation for the much larger-scale societies with very complex patterns of organization in which the majority of the world's population lives today. The kinds of activities that were concentrated in these early centers varied considerably from one region to another. In some instances increasing craft specialization and economic interdependence between households across a region seem crucial. In other instances religious beliefs and ritual activities were of the utmost importance. And in still other cases, conflict and military defense and offense appear to have played a principal role. In varying combinations, these and other social relationships often created strong inequalities of several kinds around which societies were organized. Just how particular patterns came to be emphasized in different places and how they led to varying degrees and kinds of social inequalities are not well understood. This is especially true of cases in which growing social inequalities were not grounded in differences in productive activities, wealth, and standards of living among the population.This project will pursue the possibility that in situations of relatively intense conflict, leaders in warfare acquire considerable prestige and more general authority and serve as the social centers of gravity for larger communities. As most often envisioned by researchers, such a path of development leads to increasing economic control and accumulation of wealth by these leaders, which enables them to broaden their social and political power. A prime opportunity to investigate this line of reasoning is provided by the rapid emergence of Sintashta-Petrovka societies of the southern Urals around 2000 BC. Elaborate warrior graves associated with small, compact, heavily fortified settlements indicate the social importance of war leaders, but little is known of the nature and organization of the communities they apparently led. Tightly-packed residences within small fortified areas have been studied, but held remarkably small numbers of inhabitants, probably representing only a portion of the regional populations of these polities. Previous research has failed to find much evidence of other hinterland communities in the regions around the fortified centers. But little-studied archaeological remains immediately outside the walls of the fortified centers may represent an important additional component of these communities. This research will target those remains and reconstruct the activities, statuses, and standards of living they represent and compare them to those of the people inside the fortifications. This will reveal whether the war leaders, as theorized, took on broader social and economic roles and a prestigious and became wealthy or whether a more egalitarian foundation anchored the society.