Social Adaptation During Periods Of State Collapse

研究人员将调查社区如何应对国家崩溃和气候变化，这两个过程已经使全球人口数代人开始运动。考古学非常适合解决这个问题，因为它研究了人类如何通过食物生产和其他文化实践与环境进行创新互动。已经迁移或流离失所的社区面临许多挑战，其中包括粮食不安全、经济机会有限和身份丧失。该项目的重点是牧民社区，以了解特定的经济和社会战略如何能够对移民的结果和经历产生不同的影响。农牧民受益于一个移动的粮食基地，使他们能够在不同的环境之间移动，并维持广泛的社交网络。牧民往往被认为是城市化国家社会的边缘人，当政治冲突和持续干旱的压力迫使社区为寻找资源而移徙时，他们发现自己处于优势地位。流离失所的农牧民如何在日常生活中利用其广泛的知识和资源，同时在远离家乡的地方保持其文化传统和记忆？当地和外国的资源和做法是如何塑造散居地的农牧美食、生产和仪式的？团队研究人员将为学生提供教育和培训机会，重点是考古学的科学领域和实验室方法。该项目还包括对当地社区成员进行教育宣传和专业化，以促进当地对遗产的认识，并协助保护该地区的考古遗址。研究小组将研究高地后裔牧民如何修改他们的生存策略，流动模式和仪式活动，以适应经济和社会新环境，气候变化和社会政治重组。这项研究将在不同的生态区进行，这些生态区为牧民提供了在其他边缘环境中获得季节性补充资源的机会。一个由考古学家、古民族植物学家和动物考古学家组成的团队将评估该遗址生产或获得了哪些资源。该团队将挖掘一个住宅区和邻近的墓地，以说明资源如何促进日常和仪式的做法。一套同位素科学分析的应用将使研究人员能够从该网站获取不同的材料，并重建流动和交换的空间和时间范围。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

Researchers will investigate how communities respond to state collapse and climate change, two processes that have set global human populations into motion for generations. Archaeology is well suited to address this question because it investigates how humans interact innovatively with their environments through food production and other cultural practices over many generations. Communities that have migrated or been displaced face many challenges, among them food insecurity, limited economic opportunities, and a loss of identity. This project focuses on herding communities to understand how particular economic and social strategies can differentially influence the outcome and experience of migrants. Agropastoralists benefit from a mobile food base that enables them to move between different environments and maintain broad social networks. Often considered marginal to urbanized state societies, herders find themselves at an advantage when the pressures of political conflict and persistent drought force communities to migrate in search of resources. How did displaced agropastoralists leverage their expansive knowledge and resources in their daily routine while also maintaining stewardship of their cultural traditions and memories away from home? How did local and foreign resources and practices shape agropastoral cuisine, production, and ritual in diaspora? The team researchers will provide educational and training opportunities for students with emphasis on scientific field and laboratory methods in archaeology. The project also includes educational outreach and professionalization of local community members to contribute to local awareness of heritage and to aid conservation of archaeological sites in the region. The research team will examine how highland-descendant herders modified their subsistence strategies, mobility patterns, and ritual activities to adapt economically and socially to new environments, climate change, and sociopolitical reorganization. The research will be conducted amidst diverse ecological zones that offered pastoralists access to seasonally complementary resources in an otherwise marginal environment. A team of archaeologists, paleoethnobotanists, and zooarchaeologists will assess what resources were produced or acquired at the site. The team will excavate a residential compound and adjacent cemetery area to illustrate how resources contributed to daily and ritual practices. The application of a suite of isotopic scientific analyses will allow the researchers to source different materials from the site and reconstruct the spatial and temporal scope of mobility and exchange.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.