Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Examination of Factors Which Underlie Community Mobility

华盛顿大学西雅图分校的考古学家将与印尼同事合作，调查为什么一些长期居住的社区会短距离搬迁。一些社会发展并保留了便于移动的建筑风格，尽管其中的社区往往世世代代保持在同一地点。研究人员将研究不频繁的短途流动的潜在原因，包括气候变化、冲突、贸易变化、意识形态变化和流行病，这些因素可能影响了在小范围内转移定居地点的决定。虽然众所周知，作为生存战略的一部分，人类经常将居住地从一个地方转移到另一个地方，但这项研究考察了流动性是对一系列与生存没有直接关系的因素的适应，这些因素在整个时间和空间都影响着人类，包括现在和美洲。这项研究不仅考察了移动性的生存用途，还询问了其他久坐不动的社会是否使用了轻量级、移动式的建筑方法来适应一系列不常见的压力。无论是在房屋设计、住区规划还是民间组织方面，对这些过去的适应情况的清楚理解可能会为现在的适应战略提供参考。这项研究将涉及与进行研究的现有社区成员进行磋商。研究人员将为当地学生提供考古培训，并开发教育材料，通过地区学校和博物馆分发。研究人员将测试有关气候变化的社会影响的想法，假设气候难民或对稀缺资源的冲突。同样，他们将调查有关新来的种族群体如何融入或不融入土著人口的理论。他们还将检验这样一个假设，即社会可能会迁址，以利用新的长途贸易渠道。最后，他们将检验历史假说，即殖民时期的疾病促使人们放弃定居点。研究人员将使用可测年的陶瓷和放射性碳年代来确定印度尼西亚东部阿鲁群岛乌吉尔岛和瓦西尔岛上废弃遗址的年代。他们将通过地球化学分析确定当地生产的陶器的来源，并通过风格分析确定来自更远地区的瓷器和石器的来源。通过跟踪陶瓷来源的多样性随时间的变化，研究人员将重建这些地点与当地和长途贸易网络的联系的历史。然后将遗址年表和贸易历史与历史记录和口头传统以及地区气候指标进行比较。这些方法将使研究人员能够推断是一个因素还是多个因素共同导致乌吉尔和瓦西尔过去的社区放弃了他们的定居点，这一案例研究可以为对流动性、冲突、气候变化、文化差异和贸易感兴趣的学者和公众提供信息。

Archaeologists at the University of Washington, Seattle, will collaborate with Indonesian colleagues to investigate why some residentially sedentary communities relocate over short distances. Some societies have developed and retained building styles that allow easy movement, although communities therein tend to remain in the same place for generations. The researchers will examine potential causes for infrequent, short-distance mobility including changing climate, conflict, changes in trade, ideological change, and epidemics, which may have influenced decisions to shift settlement locations within a small area. While it is well understood that humans often shift their settlements from place to place as part of a subsistence strategy, this research examines mobility as an adaptation to a range of factors not directly related to subsistence, which have affected humans throughout time, including in the present, and space, including in the Americas. While examining mobility's uses beyond subsistence, this research also asks whether otherwise sedentary societies have used lightweight, mobile building methods to adapt to a range of infrequent pressures. A clear understanding of these past adaptations may inform adaptive strategies in the present, whether in terms of house design, settlement planning, or civic organization. The research will involve consultation with members of the present community in which it takes place. The researchers will provide archaeological training to local students, and develop educational materials to distribute through regional schools and museums. The researchers will test ideas about the social effects of the changing climate, hypothesized as "climate refugees" or conflict over scarce resources. Likewise, they will investigate theories about how newly arrived ethnic groups integrate or do not integrate into an indigenous population. They will also test the hypothesis that societies may relocate to take advantage of new access to long-distance trade. Finally, they will test the historical hypothesis that colonial-period diseases spurred the abandonment of settlements. The researchers will use datable ceramics and radiocarbon dating to determine a chronology for the abandoned sites on the islands of Ujir and Wasir in the Aru archipelago, Eastern Indonesia. They will determine the sources of locally produced earthenwares through geochemical analysis, and of porcelain and stoneware from more distant regions through stylistic analysis. By tracking changes in the diversity of ceramic sources over time, the researchers will reconstruct a history of the sites' connections to local and long-distance trade networks. The site chronology and trade history will then be compared to historical records and oral traditions, as well as regional climate proxies. These methods will allow the researchers to infer whether one factor or multiple factors together caused the past communities on Ujir and Wasir to abandon their settlements, in a case study that can inform scholars and members of the public interested in mobility, conflict, climate change, cultural difference, and trade.