Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Regional Influence on Social Network Development

来自乔治亚大学的Jacob Lulewicz将研究社会转型的过程，包括社会政治等级和社会经济不平等的出现，是如何被社会网络的规模和结构所塑造的。以前关于组织复杂制度发展的学术研究侧重于通过识别特定时刻的特定组织特征来定义从一种社会政治战略到另一种社会政治战略的变化。然而，这些关键的转变本质上植根于更广泛的历史和关系背景中，并通过新的和现有的社会、政治和经济网络实施。考古学非常适合通过关注制度的深层历史根源和捕捉社会政治发展的历史和地理细微差别来阐明社会网络和社会变革之间的关系。社会网络通过限制和提供信息传播、促进社会运动、接受或拒绝思想和创新的手段，使社会变革成为背景。这项研究将在美国东南部的阿巴拉契亚南部地区进行，在那里，大约公元1000年，政治领导权变得集中，大规模的政治经济通过农业生产的大规模集约化形成，社会和经济不平等变得根深蒂固，参与泛区域仪式机构的人数增加。社会网络将在两个互补的分析尺度上进行审查：1)基于非正式和频繁互动的地方网络，2)基于政治关系和参与宗教和其他交叉机构的泛区域网络。每个网络将被询问，以更好地了解他们是如何组织新的组织战略的出现。具体的重点将放在现代格鲁吉亚西北部和田纳西州东部地区，其中社会政治变革的特点和时间性遵循着不同的发展轨迹。研究人员将构建南阿巴拉契亚的网络历史，以比较乔治亚州西北部和田纳西州东部地区不同的社会政治轨迹。南阿巴拉契亚地区社会网络变化的规模、结构和速度将通过(a)区域整合贝叶斯放射性碳测年计划的构建，(b)风格和技术陶瓷属性的区域数据库的构建，以及(c)通过分析贝壳面具图案和殡葬习俗来评估政治-宗教图像的区域模式来阐明。

Jacob Lulewicz from the University of Georgia will study how processes of societal transformation, including the emergence of sociopolitical hierarchies and socioeconomic inequalities, are shaped by the scale and structure of social networks. Previous scholarship on the development of organizationally complex institutions has focused on defining changes from one type of sociopolitical strategy to another through the identification of particular organizational traits at particular moments in time. However, these critical transformations are inherently embedded in broader historical and relational contexts, and are enacted through new and existing social, political, and economic networks. Archaeology is well suited to elucidating the relationships between social networks and societal change by focusing on the deep historical roots of institutions and capturing the historical and geographic nuances of sociopolitical development. Social networks contextualize societal change by both constraining and providing the means through which information is spread, social movements are facilitated, and ideas and innovations are adopted or rejected. The research will be conducted in the Southern Appalachian region of the Southeastern United States, where at ca. A.D. 1000, political leadership became centralized, large-scale political economies were formed through the mass intensification of agricultural production, social and economic inequalities became engrained, and participation in pan-regional ritual institutions proliferated.Social networks at two complementary scales of analysis will be examined: 1) local networks, based on informal and frequent interactions, and 2) panregional networks, based on political affiliation and participation in religious and other cross-cutting institutions. Each network will be interrogated to better understand how they structured the emergence of new organizational strategies. Specific focus will be on the areas of modern day northwestern Georgia and eastern Tennessee where the characteristics and temporality of sociopolitical change followed distinct developmental trajectories. The researchers will construct network histories of Southern Appalachia to compare the differing sociopolitical trajectories of the northwestern Georgia and eastern Tennessee regions. The scale, structure, and tempo of changes to social networks across Southern Appalachia will be elucidated through (a) the construction of a regionally-integrated Bayesian radiocarbon dating program, (b) the construction of a regional database of stylistic and technological ceramic attributes, and (c) the assessment of regional patterning of politico-religious iconography through the analysis of shell gorget motifs and mortuary practices.