Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Village Organization in Non-complex Societies

该项目通过研究觅食种群如何在大型仪式中心组织他们的定居和社会关系，调查狩猎采集者从季节性定居到永久性定居的转变。具有令人印象深刻的纪念碑和广泛的家庭区域的仪式中心通常被解释为早期的村庄，使其成为各自地区的第一批永久定居点。早期村庄的特征，例如全年有人居住、一体化的社会机构以及复杂社会组织的初期形式，通常是在区域人口压力和限制的背景下发展起来的，这限制了人们在整个景观中自由流动的能力。对流动性的限制被认为是这一进程的必要组成部分，以抵消人口稠密的永久定居点日常生活中伴随的社会冲突所造成的驱散压力。然而，北美东部似乎是一个例外，因为该地区的狩猎采集人口聚集在一起，形成了类似村庄的大型纪念性中心，没有强大的外部流动限制。北美东部狩猎采集仪式中心的出现是否代表了sedentism和社会复杂性发展的另一种轨迹？当代美国社会也面临着一些与定居乡村生活初期相同的紧张关系，比如自治和地方自治之间的紧张关系，这使得人们如何以及为什么在过去自愿聚集成大型、密集和永久的社会群体成为一个重要的研究领域。作为本研究的一部分进行的研究将为当地志愿者和学生提供考古教育和培训机会。该项目将调查北美东部的狩猎采集仪式中心，以概述定居点聚集过程是如何发生的，以及它与其他地区的不同之处。世界其他地区。研究人员将集中在一个大型仪式中心。该遗址见证了几个大型土墩中心的发展，这些土墩中心被描述为早期村庄。尽管该遗址面积巨大，但考古学家对该遗址的关注相对较少，其定居点的性质在很大程度上仍然未知。整合挖掘、放射性碳测年、植物分析和陶瓷产地的数据将允许评估不同的定居、流动和社会组织模式。这些数据将与北美和世界其他地区的其他仪式中心和早期村庄进行比较，以更好地了解导致狩猎采集人口发展大型永久定居点和复杂社会的各种轨迹。该奖项反映了NSF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。

This project investigates the transition from seasonal to permanent settlement among hunter-gatherers by studying how foraging populations organized their settlement and social relations at large ceremonial centers. Ceremonial centers with impressive monuments and extensive domestic zones have often been interpreted as early villages, making them among the first permanent settlements in their respective regions. Characteristics of early villages such as year-round occupation, integrative social institutions, and incipient forms of complex social organization usually developed in contexts of regional population pressure and circumscription, which limited the ability of people to move freely across the landscape. Limitations on mobility are thought to be a necessary part of this process to counteract the pressure to disperse due to social conflict that accompanies daily life in densely populated, permanent settlements. However, Eastern North America seems to be an exception, as hunter-gatherer populations in this region came together to form large, monumental centers resembling villages in the absence of strong external constraints on mobility. Does the emergence of hunter-gatherer ceremonial centers in Eastern North America represent an alternative trajectory for the development of sedentism and social complexity? Contemporary American society is subject to some of the same tensions that characterized the beginnings of sedentary village life, such as that between autonomy and communalism, making the topic of how and why people in the past voluntarily aggregated into large, dense, and permanent social groups an important area of inquiry. Research conducted as part of this study will provide archaeological education and training opportunities for local volunteers and students.The project will investigate hunter-gatherer ceremonial centers in Eastern North America to outline how the process of settlement aggregation occurred and how it may have differed from other world regions. The researchers will focus on one large ceremonial center. This site witnessed the development of several large mound centers that have been characterized as early villages. Despite its exceptional size, the site has received comparatively little attention from archaeologists and the nature of its settlement is still largely unknown. Integrating data from excavation, radiocarbon dating, botanical analysis, and ceramic provenance will permit the evaluation of differing models of settlement, mobility, and social organization. These data will then be compared with other ceremonial centers and early villages from North America and other parts of the world to better understand the various trajectories that led hunter-gatherer populations to develop large, permanent settlements and complex societies.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.