Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Social Interaction, Community Formation, and Interaction in Borderlands

这个博士论文研究项目探讨了生活在更复杂的组织群体边缘的社会如何与这些群体的物质文化接触，并由此延伸到群体本身。在地球仪周围，复杂的社会向邻近的边缘地区扩展，通过殖民化和全球化等进程产生了重大的长期影响。以前的研究通过关注文化核心如何与邻近地区互动来研究这些过程。然而，这些边缘地区的居民选择如何与一个或多个文化核心互动，可能会提供关键的见解，在边疆地区的身份形成。通过了解过去的边疆群体如何与文化核心进行物质上的接触，本项目有助于正在进行的关于边疆地区社会认同与文化遗产之间关系的讨论。 除了培训一名博士生外，该项目还将改善西南部边境地区沿着几个机构的考古材料展示，并将有助于该地区当代居民和文化上附属的土著社区的教育。该项目将产生考古学家、博物馆和当地社区感兴趣的数据，还将提供创新的比较方法，并改进现有的理论方法，以了解边缘地区。该研究通过关注边缘地区的定居点如何与几个文化核心互动，调查边缘中间社会的跨文化互动过程。该项目的数据来自10个发掘的村庄遗址和边境地区的其他调查点。通过对陶瓷文物的物理和地球化学分析、放射性碳测年以及基于定居点的建筑和墓葬分析，研究人员将评估边缘区域的四种不同模型，并评估研究区域随时间的变化。他们还将采用贝叶斯统计模型来改进放射性碳年代测定，并为该地区的各个地点建立一个强大的年表，以了解当地社区如何应对社会政治复杂政体的建立。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。

This doctoral dissertation research project examines how societies living on the edges of more complexly organized groups engage with the material culture of these groups and, by extension, with the groups themselves. Around the globe, the expansion of complex societies into adjacent peripheral areas has resulted in substantial, long-term impacts through processes such as colonization and globalization. Previous research has examined these processes through a focus on how cultural cores engage with adjacent areas. Yet, choices by inhabitants within these peripheral areas on how to interact with one or more cultural cores may provide key insights into identity formation in borderland regions. By understanding how past borderland groups engaged materially with cultural cores, this project contributes to ongoing discussions of the relationship between social identity and cultural heritage in borderland regions. In addition to training a doctoral student, the project will improve the display of archaeological materials at several institutions along in the borderlands in the Southwest and will contribute to the education of contemporary inhabitants and culturally affiliated Indigenous communities in the area. This project will generate data of interest to archaeologists, museums, and local communities and will also provide innovative comparative methods and improve existing theoretical approaches to understanding edge regions.The research investigates the processes of cross-cultural interaction in a peripheral intermediate society by focusing on how settlements in the periphery engaged with several cultural cores. The data for this project comes from ten excavated village sites and additional surveyed sites in a borderland region. Using physical and geochemical analysis of ceramic artifacts, radiocarbon dating, and settlement-based architectural and mortuary analyses, the researchers will evaluate four different models of edge regions and assess changes over time in the study area. They will also employ Bayesian statistical modeling to improve the radiocarbon dates and establish a robust chronology for individual sites in the area to understand how local communities responded to the establishment of a socio-politically complex polity.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.