Doctoral Dissertation Research: Northern Innovation: Modelling Copper Technologies

技术创新是人类适应环境和社会挑战能力的重要组成部分。今天，技术被想象为尖端的数字、生物机械和机器人发明，有可能推动人类进入想象中的未来。然而，应该认识到，这些现代进步只是人类操纵环境中的材料以解决任何数量的工程、物理和社会问题的最新和最明显的例子。这个项目研究的是有2000年历史的本土铜技术，但在他们的时代，这些技术是高度创新的，代表着巨大的技术进步。考古学能够研究人类社会在远古时期的发展，它表明，技术进步受到各种环境和文化影响，创新者在试验新材料和新想法时必须驾驭这些影响。就像当代IT初创企业必须开发新材料、创建新软件并在风险投资世界中导航一样，古人必须找到本地铜矿来源，创造新的工具形式，并在经常徒步旅行的长距离贸易网络中导航。考古学家对围绕创新的物质和社会环境之间的关系的洞察，使我们能够洞察当代背景下创新的物质和社会障碍。这项研究通过土著冶金学的视角考察了前哥伦布、北美北极和亚洲区的技术创新。该地区土著人民使用地质上纯净的天然铜已有2000多年的历史。这包括适应不同生态区的不同文化群体，跨越全球和区域气候的多种波动。在这种情况下，天然铜是考察技术创新的理想对象。来自这一大片地区的原生铜文物数据库已经编制完成，其中包括广泛的尺寸、类型和功能。由于原生铜仅限于少数几个可靠的来源地区，调查人员可以使用地理空间模型来量化从地质来源获取原材料或成品并将其运输到考古地点所需的工作量。结合对各种物品的生产过程的持续研究，可以在当地对创造和使用这些物品的工匠和贸易商的功能需求的背景下模拟完整的生活史，包括他们采用新颖和创新的方式来适应他们的个人需求。除了使用考古和博物馆文物外，还将审查北极和亚北极洲当地后裔社区(主要是土著社区)从考古遗址收集的物品，并将其纳入数据库。这不仅将通过纳入科学研究人员相对难以接近的物体来大幅扩大数据库，而且还将使土著社区参与研究进程。这项研究和赠款的一个中心目标是研究人员和土著社区之间交流信息，包括关于博物馆藏品档案中通常无法获取的物品的知识。

Technological innovation is an essential component of the human ability to adapt to environmental and social challenges. Today, technology is imagined to be cutting edge digital, biomechanical, and robotic inventions that have the potential to propel humanity into the imagined future. However, it should be recognized, that these modern advances are simply the most recent and visible examples of people manipulating materials from their environment to solve any number of engineering, physical and social problems. This project researches native copper technologies that are up to 2,000 years old, but in their time these technologies were highly innovative and represented huge technological advancements. Archaeology, with its ability to investigate the development of human societies through advanced time, has shown that technological advancements are subject to a great variety of environmental and cultural influences that innovators must navigate as they experiment with new materials and ideas. Just as contemporary IT start ups must develop new materials, create new software and navigate the world of venture capital, ancient people had to locate native copper sources, create new tool forms, and navigate trade networks over long distances that frequently were travelled on foot. The insights archaeologists gain into the relationship between the physical and social environment surrounding innovation gives us insights into the physical and social hurdles to innovation in a contemporary context. This research examines technological innovation through the lens of Indigenous metallurgy in the Pre-Columbian, North American Arctic and Subarctic. The use of geologically pure native copper by Indigenous peoples of this region spans the past 2 millennia. This includes a diverse set of cultural groups adapted to a variety of ecological zones, spanning multiple fluctuations in global and regional climate. Native copper in this context is an ideal subject to examine technological innovation. A database of native copper artifacts from across this large region has been compiled, and includes a wide range of sizes, types, and functions. Since native copper is limited to just a few reliable source regions, the investigators can quantify the amount of effort needed to acquire and transport raw material or finished goods from geological sources to archaeological sites using geospatial models. When combined with ongoing study of the production process of various objects, a complete life history can be modeled within the context of local, functional requirements for the individual craftspeople and traders who created and used these objects, including novel and innovative ways they adapted copper technology to suit their individual needs. In addition to using archaeological and museum artifacts, objects that have been collected from archaeological sites by local descendant communities, primarily Indigenous communities, in the Arctic and Subarctic will be examined and incorporated into the database. This will not only expand the database substantially by incorporating objects that are relatively inaccessible to scientific researchers, but will also engage Indigenous communities in the research process. A central goal of the research and the grant is the exchange of information between the researchers and the Indigenous communities, including knowledge about objects that are typically inaccessible in museum collections archives.