Collaborative Research: Long Term Process of Cultural Melding

研究人员将调查社区如何在新的生态环境中通过移民和定居形成和发展混合文化传统。物品的制造、交换和使用嵌入到社会关系中，包括教与学、谈判和日常使用的过程。因此，物体积极地在创造和使用它们的人之间建立关系，尽管背景、生活方式和信仰系统不同。在全球移民和环境不稳定日益加剧的时代，以物质文化和实践联系在一起的人的网络为中心的考古研究揭示了人们是如何应对谈判物理和文化边界的普遍挑战的。像这样的人类学方法，以考古数据为基础，为不断变化的世界贡献了有弹性的战略。该项目将强调第一代和土著学生对考古研究的参与和培训。该小组还将与部落国家合作，帮助他们确定与祖先的直接历史联系，并完善他们的历史名胜区，以更好地促进《美洲原住民坟墓保护和遣返法案》(NAGPRA)概述的咨询和遣返进程。这个项目强调日常实践--在这个案例中，陶器的生产和使用--如何促进生活在美国沿海地区的一群人之间建立不同类型的社会关系，其中一些人是最近移民。研究人员不会假设共享的身份或从属关系，而是使用社交网络分析方法来检查这些关系的结构，该方法结合了陶器的细粒度元素、技术功能和图像属性。利用现有的收藏品，研究人员将开发一个地理和时间敏感的空间模型。这一区域为调查沿海环境和不依赖农业提供粮食盈余的人们日益增加的社会复杂性提供了新的背景，而粮食盈余通常构成复杂社会的基础。所采用的方法将提供一个模型，以检验1)物质文化实践中的细微差别如何反映创造和使用这些物品的人之间的各种联系，以及2)物品如何通过亲属关系、贸易和交流网络、政治联盟和/或宗教实践将人们联系在一起。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。

Researchers will investigate how communities form and hybrid cultural traditions develop through migration and settlement in new ecological contexts. The manufacture, exchange, and use of objects are embedded in social relationships that include processes of teaching and learning, negotiation, and everyday use. Thus, objects actively forge relationships among the people who create and use them, despite differences in backgrounds, lifeways, and belief systems. In a time of increasing migration and environmental instability worldwide, archaeological research that centers networks of people linked by material culture and practice reveals how people contend with the universal challenges of negotiating physical and cultural borders. Anthropological approaches such as this, grounded in archaeological data, contribute resilient strategies for a changing world. This project will emphasize the participation and training of first-generation and Indigenous students in archaeological research. The team will also collaborate with tribal nations to help them define direct historical connections with their ancestors and refine their areas of historical interest, to better facilitate consultation and repatriation processes outlined by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This project emphasizes how daily practice—in this case, the production and use of pottery—facilitated different types of social connections among groups of people living in a US coastal region some of whom were recent migrants. Rather than assuming shared identities or affiliations, the researchers will examine the structure of these relationships using a social network analysis approach that incorporates fine-grained elemental, technofunctional, and iconographic attributes of pottery. Making use of extant collections, the researchers will develop a geographically and temporally sensitive spatial model. This region presents a new context for investigating increasing social complexity in coastal environments, and among people who did not rely on agriculture to provide the food surplus that typically underpins complex societies. The methods employed will provide a model for examining 1) how fine-grained distinctions in material culture practice reflect various connections among the people who create and use these objects, and 2) how objects are fundamental to connecting people through kinship, trade and exchange networks, political alliances, and/or religious practice.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.