Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Subsistence in Developing Cities

这个博士论文项目将研究动物在一个大型的前现代城市的城市经济中的作用，以进一步了解城市食品经济如何与社会组织和财富不平等相关。粮食生产和分配系统与社会的经济组织和社会结构密切相关，并可能加剧社会不平等，特别是在许多家庭不直接生产自己的粮食的城市。考古学非常适合调查食物系统在世界上最早的城市中促进城市发展的许多方式，提供了一个独特的视角，可以为当今不断增长的城市人口的潜在影响提供信息。本项目将提供一个重要的前现代城市的食物系统的一个方面的比较数据，促进国际和跨学科的合作，并在研究领域内进行公共宣传。本研究探讨动物在前现代城市的城市经济中的作用，这是一个重要的案例研究，了解粮食生产，城市经济和社会不平等发展之间的关系。特奥蒂瓦坎（100-550/650 CE），位于墨西哥中部高原，是一个大型，多样化的城市，在古代世界是独一无二的，因为它是在没有大型驯化动物的情况下提供的城市，并且能够以支持其日常城市居民的方式这样做。这项研究将评估特奥蒂瓦坎的城市和农村居民如何获得动物，以及狩猎和饲养动物对城市经济的作用。为了评估随时间变化的多个轨迹，本研究提出了一种创新的动物考古学分析整合，以确定居民消费的动物类型，并通过碳稳定同位素分析将动物与自然环境区分开来，以及那些生活在人为环境中的动物，如农田或动物围栏。此外，该研究采用了基于胶原蛋白肽指纹的动物考古学（ZooMS），这是一种新技术，用于识别动物遗骸，以克服动物骨骼形态识别的局限性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This doctoral dissertation project will examine the role of animals in the urban economy of a large, pre-modern city in order to further understanding of how urban food economies relate to social organization and wealth inequalities. Systems of food production and distribution are closely tied to the economic organization and social structure of a society, and can serve to reinforce social inequalities, particularly in cities in which many households do not directly produce their own food. Archaeology is ideally situated to investigate the many ways in which food systems contributed to urban developments in the world's earliest cities, providing a unique perspective that can inform on the potential impacts of today's growing urban populations. This project will provide a comparative data on one aspect of the food system from an important pre-modern city, foster international and interdisciplinary collaboration, and engage in public outreach within the research area.This research examines the role of animals in the urban economy of a pre-modern city that is a vital case study in understanding the relationships between food production, urban economies and the development of social inequalities. Teotihuacan (100-550/650 CE), located in central highland Mexico, was a large, diverse city and is unique in the ancient world as a city that was provisioned in the absence of large domesticates, and one that was able to do so in a way that supported its everyday urban residents. The research will evaluate how urban and rural residents of Teotihuacan acquired animals, and the role of hunting and raising animals to the urban economy. To evaluate multiple trajectories of change over time, this study presents an innovative integration of zooarchaeological analysis, to identify the types of animals consumed by residents, and carbon stable isotope analysis to distinguish animals from natural environments, and those which lived in anthropogenic environments, such as agricultural fields or animal pens. In addition, this research employs zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS), a new technique for the identification of faunal remains based on collagen peptide fingerprints, to overcome limitations in the morphological identification of animal bones.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.