The Interaction of Warfare and Agricultural Intensification

有大量的考古研究集中在了解古代玛雅王朝，相互竞争的宫廷之间的冲突，以及日常生活中的古城。但是，农村社区如何经历安全和不安全之间的摇摆，这是和平和冲突交替发生的结果，也是几十年气候稳定和干旱时期的结果？查尔斯·戈登博士(布兰迪斯大学)、安德鲁·谢勒博士(布朗大学)、蒂莫西·穆尔塔博士(佛罗里达大学)将与美国、加拿大和墨西哥的同事一起探讨这一根本问题。为了解决这个问题，他们将把重点放在气候战争和农业集约化之间的关系上。这项研究将为理解西部玛雅低地的战争和农业经济之间的纠缠(或缺乏)提供第一步，并对更广泛地理解人类-环境和政治动态产生影响。进行这项研究的乌苏马辛塔河流域以及新热带地区的其他地区的自然和文化资源正受到抢劫、非法砍伐、刀耕火种的农业和牲畜管理做法的破坏，这些做法可能会导致近几十年来饱受干旱困扰的地区发生毁灭性的野火。了解景观的长期用途将有助于解决当代土地利用问题，并有助于规划可持续性。这项研究继续努力增进研究人员对古代玛雅人防御特征和战争的总体理解，并代表着对识别战争对古代玛雅人潜在经济原因和后果的一种新尝试。西部玛雅低地是研究社会冲突与农业生产关系的理想案例。该地区拥有雄厚的金石学记录和数十年的考古田野工作，拥有不同的政治治理战略和社会政治融合。这项拟议的研究还将促进对古代玛雅农业系统的了解。研究区域是玛雅低地中最潮湿的地区，很少有研究考虑长期的农业动态。这样的区域比较对于关于农业制度的综合声明至关重要，这些声明通常基于在北平中部、伯利兹和尤卡坦北部不同的生态区进行的研究。这一奖项反映了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。

There is abundant archaeological research focused on understanding ancient Maya dynasties, conflicts between competing royal courts, and daily life ancient cities. But how did communities in the countryside experience vacillations between security and insecurity, resulting from alternating episodes of peace and conflict, and decades of climate stability followed by periods of drought? Drs. Charles Golden (Brandeis University), Andrew Scherer (Brown University), Timothy Murtha (University of Florida) together with colleagues in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will address this fundamental question. To address this question they will focus on the relationships among climate warfare and agricultural intensification. The research will provide a first step towards understanding the entanglement (or lack thereof) between war and the agricultural economy in the western Maya lowlands, with implications for understanding human-environmental and political dynamics more broadly. The natural and cultural resources of the Usumacinta River Basin in which the research will take place and other areas of the neotropics are being devastated by looting, illegal logging, slash-and-burn agriculture, and livestock management practices that can result in devastating wildfires in a landscape plagued in recent decades by drought. Understanding long-term uses of the landscape will help to address contemporary land use issues and assist in planning for sustainability. This research continues the investigators efforts to enhance understandings of ancient Maya defensive features and warfare generally and represents a new attempt to identify the potential economic causes and consequences of war for the ancient Maya. The western Maya lowlands is an ideal case for the study of the relationship between social strife and agricultural production. With a robust epigraphic record and decades of archaeological fieldwork, the region hosted a diversity of polities in terms of their strategies of governance and socio-political integration. The proposed research will also advance understanding of ancient Maya agricultural systems. The study area is the wettest region of the Maya lowlands, where little work has considered agricultural dynamics over the long term. Such regional comparison is critical for synthetic statements about agricultural regimes that are often based on research conducted in the distinct ecological zones of the Central Peten, Belize, and northern Yucatan.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.