Nature of State Instability

2007年，全球城市人口数量超过了农村人口，这凸显了在跨文化和历时性框架下对城市发展、组织和衰落进行更多研究的必要性。在此背景下，研究人员将领导一个研究项目，调查古代城市早期城市化崩溃的一个例子。该遗址连续被占用了600多年，为研究一个长时间序列的古代城市提供了一个机会，并提出了与其他时间和地点的城市主义相关的问题。是什么让城市容易崩溃，又是什么让它们有弹性？能从物证中预测崩溃吗？移民在多大程度上参与了城市发展和衰落的过程？在解决这些问题的过程中，本研究将有助于我们对城市化和社会解体的因素有更广泛的理解。这项研究的结果将通过大众和学术来源广泛传播，并将通过公开展示、讲座和现场导游与当地社区分享。此外，由于本研究采用了多种分析方法，它将为本科生和研究生提供与科学与社会科学领域相关的方法培训的机会。该合作项目将汇集研究人员，以更好地了解城市主义衰落的因素，崩溃后的重新配置机制，以及城市衰落对当地人口的影响。该项目专注于城市的一个地区，该地区因其衰落而被占领，使其成为探索长时间序列的城市进程的合适地点。为了更好地描述崩溃的本质，该项目探索了物质文化的哪些方面：哪些方面在崩溃前后表现出连续性，哪些方面随着时间的推移表现出不连续性或变化。为了实现这一目标，研究将沿着几个数据收集途径进行，包括实地调查，水平挖掘，AMS放射性碳定年，陶瓷和岩石分析，人类和动物骨骼的同位素分析，以及动物研究。通过结合这些数据集，该项目将考察社会身份、经济网络、饮食和空间利用等方面的连续性和非连续性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In 2007, the number of people living in cities across the globe surpassed the number in rural areas, highlighting the need for more research on the development, organization, and decline of cities within cross-cultural and diachronic frameworks. Within this context investigators will lead a research project to investigate an example of the collapse of early urbanism at the ancient city. Continuously occupied for over 600 years, the site presents an opportunity to study an ancient city over a long temporal sequence, and to ask questions relevant to urbanism in other times and places. What makes cities vulnerable to collapse and what makes them resilient? Can collapse be predicted from material evidence? To what extent is immigration involved in the processes of urban development and decline? In addressing these questions, this research will contribute to our broader understandings of urbanism and to the factors involved in societal disintegration. Results of this study will be widely disseminated through popular and academic sources and will be shared with the local community through public displays, lectures, and through guided tours of the site. Because the research employs multiple analytical approaches, moreover, it will provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate training in methods relevant to S.T.E.M. and social science fields.This collaborative project will bring together researchers to better understand the factors involved in the decline of urbanism, the mechanisms of its reconfiguration after collapse, and the effects of urban decline on the local population.The project focuses on a region of the city which was occupied through its decline, making it an opportune location to explore urban processes over a long temporal sequence. With the explicit goal of better characterizing the nature of the collapse, the project explores which aspects of material culture: which exhibited continuity between the pre- and post-collapse periods and which aspects exhibited discontinuity or change over time. To accomplish this, the research will proceed along several avenues of data collection including field survey, horizontal excavations, AMS radiocarbon dating, ceramic and lithic analyses, isotopic analysis of human and animal bone, and faunal studies. By combining these datasets, the project will examine the continuities and discontinuities in aspects of social identity, economic networks, diet, and the use of space over time.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.