The Role of Production and Economic Exchange in Strengthening Social Bonds

凯尼恩学院的厄本和肖特曼博士将与材料分析专家一起，研究人们在制作、交换和使用陶瓷容器时是如何建立古代社会关系的。过去的学生倾向于认为人际关系是在家庭、王国和帝国等领土嵌套的单位内和之间组织起来的。因此，史前时期充斥着空间上定义的实体，类似于人们今天所熟悉的实体。考古学家对这一过去的愿景做出了贡献，并处于独特的地位来挑战它。考古学家专注于谁制造、交换和使用特定的物品，可以描述通过这些突出的过程而变得有形的重叠的社会网络。这为人们提供了洞察，了解人们如何使用物品来与生活在不同地点的人结盟并与之区分开来。然后，过去成为一个不断变化的社会关系的动态领域，通过使用不同的对象，所有这些都是在无视边界的情况下运作的。这些交易构成了当今全球化世界的根源，这是一部在多个空间尺度上运行的不断变化的社会、经济和政治关系的历史，只有通过考古才能理解。通过这样的研究形成的概念可以卓有成效地应用于理解今天许多地区的社会和空间组织。Urban和Schortman对洪都拉斯西北部三个毗邻山谷的研究表明，公元7世纪至10世纪期间，盆地居民都使用了一种独特的罐子，上面装饰着相同的红色图案。这些都是随处可见的，但由不同的粘土颜色和纹理定义的不同浆料制成。这种独特的器皿组构可能表明，它们的起源不同于在三个地点发现的陶瓷作坊，每个山谷一个。因此，这些盆地的居住者可能已经参与了一个广泛的社交网络，通过红漆罐子上的共享符号来表达。重建这样的网络需要分析在不同制造地点回收的各种浆料的罐子碎片，以确定它们的化学和矿物特征是否是这些车间独有的。这项研究将对区域史前产生新的见解，特别是生活在邻近地区的人们如何通过涉及使用实物的交易而不同程度地团结和分裂。这项工作还为洪都拉斯的年轻考古学家提供了机会，让他们学习撰写本国史前史所需的田野和分析技术。

Drs. Urban and Schortman of Kenyon College, together with specialists in material analyses, will study how people forged ancient social relations as they made, exchanged, and used ceramic containers. Students of the past tend to see interpersonal relations as organized within and across territorially nested units such as households, realms, and empires. Consequently, prehistory is populated with spatially defined entities that resemble those one is familiar with today. Archaeologists have contributed to this vision of the past and are uniquely positioned to challenge it. Focusing on who fabricated, exchanged, and used specific items, archaeologists can describe the overlapping social networks made tangible through these highlighted processes. This provides insight into how people employed objects to ally with, and differentiate themselves from, those living in a variety of locales. The past then emerges as a dynamic field of ever-changing social relations mediated through the use of diverse objects, all operating with a fine disregard for borders. These dealings constitute the roots of the present day globalizing world, a history of shifting social, economic, and political relations operating on multiple spatial scales that can only be understood through archaeology. The concepts developed through such studies can be fruitfully applied to understand social and spatial organization in many regions today.Urban and Schortman's research within three adjoining valleys in northwestern Honduras reveals that the basins' residents during the 7th through 10th centuries AD all used a distinctive form of jar decorated with the same red-painted designs. These are found everywhere, but are made with different pastes defined by variations in clay colors and textures. Such distinct vessel fabrics may point to their divergent origins within the ceramic workshops uncovered at three sites, one in each valley. Occupants of these basins might, therefore, have participated in an extensive social web expressed through the shared symbols that graced red-painted jars. Reconstructing such a web requires analyzing jar fragments with varied pastes recovered at the different manufacturing sites to determine if their chemical and mineral signatures are unique to those workshops. The research will generate new insights on regional prehistory, especially how people living in neighboring areas were variably united and divided through dealings involving the use of material objects. The work also provides opportunities for young Honduran archaeologists to learn the field and analytical techniques they will need to write their country's prehistory.