Trade and the Development of Social Complexity

所有现代国家都完全依赖于金属的特殊机械和电学特性。铁和铝储量丰富，分布广泛，但许多其他关键金属的主要矿藏稀缺，因此必须通过国际贸易获得这些矿藏。非洲大陆南部三分之一的地区异常富含稀有金属。它拥有世界上最大的铂、钴、铜和锰储量，历史上生产的黄金比其他任何地区都多。采矿和冶金目前在中部和南部非洲大多数国家的国内生产总值(GDP)中占很大比例，但很少有人知道这一地区的采矿很久以前就开始了。至少从公元200年开始，这里就开始开采和冶炼铁和铜，而从公元1200年开始，这里就开始开采和冶炼黄金。铜器经常在远离任何潜在铜来源的考古遗址中被发现。南部和中部非洲的公民很少意识到该地区殖民前采矿或铜贸易的程度。这一古代铜矿开采和贸易项目的预期成果可能会在非洲纸媒和电子新闻媒体上得到广泛报道，并将纳入非洲学校和大学的教材中。这项由该奖项资助的研究将研究公元200年至公元1700年之间南部非洲的铜循环。David Killick博士和研究生Jay Stephens将与南部非洲的考古学家和亚利桑那大学的地球化学家合作，通过将铜物体的铅同位素比率与该地区矿藏的铅同位素比率进行匹配，重建史前时期铜的远距离移动。这项研究将为研究南部非洲考古学中的一些关键问题提供一种新的途径。其中包括：追踪最早使用金属的民族(班图移民)进入南非的路线；确定特定铜矿开始开采的时间；记录该地区主要史前国家之间的贸易联系；并提供一种新的方式来看待自16世纪初欧洲人在该地区定居后这些贸易体系发生的变化。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

All modern nations are completely dependent upon the special mechanical and electrical properties of metals. Iron and aluminum are abundant and widely distributed, but major deposits of many other critically important metals are scarce, so these must be obtained by international trade. The southern third of the African continent is unusually rich in the rarer metals. It has the world's largest reserves of platinum, cobalt, copper and manganese, and has historically produced more gold than any other region. Mining and metallurgy now account for a major proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of most nations in central and southern Africa, but few know that mining in this region began long ago. Iron and copper have been mined and smelted here since at least 200 AD, and gold since at least 1200 AD. Copper objects are often found in archaeological sites far from any potential source of copper. Few citizens of southern and central African are aware of the extent of precolonial mining, or of trade in copper in this region. The anticipated results of this project on ancient copper mining and trade will likely be widely covered in African print and electronic news media, and will be incorporated into educational materials for African schools and universities. The research funded by this award will study the circulation of copper within southern Africa between 200 CE to about 1700 CE. Dr. David Killick and graduate student Jay Stephens will collaborate with archaeologists in southern Africa, and with geochemists at the University of Arizona, to reconstruct long-distance movements of copper in prehistoric times by matching the lead isotope ratios of copper objects to those from ore deposits throughout the region. This research will provide a novel way to study some key issues in the archaeology of southern Africa. These include: tracing the routes taken by the earliest metal-using peoples (the Bantu migration) into South Africa; establishing when mining of specific copper deposits began; documenting trade links between the major prehistoric states in the region; and providing a new way to look at the changes that occurred in these trading systems after Europeans settled in the region, from the early sixteenth century.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.