Collaborative Research: Peripheral Neighborhoods in City Creation

这个项目的目标是了解一个城市的地理边缘的社区如何可能或可能不社会外围的城市，以及如何影响该城市的历史轨迹。具体而言，研究团队将研究人们对城市社区的时间、精力和资源投入，他们对社区和城市整体的认同感，以及他们职业的长度和强度之间的关系。考古学在解决城市历史过程中的这些问题方面具有独特的地位，重点是参与，身份和不平等的物质证据。通过考虑社区多样性与城市投资水平的关系，人们可以了解通过有意参与创造的社会，经济和政治联系是否会导致人们留在并继续参与该城市，或者相反，缺乏这种联系是否会导致更快地放弃这些社区。这可能有助于人们从自下而上的基层视角理解社会投资和地方参与、社区身份的多样性以及现代城市的未来之间的微妙关系。此外，该项目还将为学生提供一个学习考古调查和挖掘技术的空间，并为当地社区提供机会，主要由移民或第一代社区成员组成，参与并了解他们对城市的现代体验与过去生活在该空间的人们之间的相似性和差异。关注古城不同街区居民的生活经历，研究人员将考虑当地的投资（例如，建筑、基础设施、邻里组织）和潜在的好处（例如，研究人员将在一个史前城市中解决这些问题，这个城市被当地人和非当地人占领了大约三个世纪。使用非侵入性地球物理调查来搜索地下考古特征，土壤取芯和有针对性的挖掘，研究人员将比较城市物理边缘的两个社区，以衡量居住者是否也是社会边缘，或者他们是否完全参与了中心城市的项目，活动和想法。研究人员将研究建筑风格和社区组织，包括公共建筑的分布，连接场地区域的堤道的接近程度，社区仪式可能发生的土堆和广场群，以及指示当地物理和社会投资水平的平整或填充居住区域。最后，研究人员将比较该遗址中心部分典型的材料类型的比例，看看居住在这些外围社区的人是否与居住在市中心附近的人获得相同种类的物品，原材料和食物，即，这个奖项反映了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。

The goal of this project is to understand how neighborhoods at the geographical margins of a city may or may not be socially peripheral to that city and how that affects the historical trajectory of that city. Specifically, the research team will undertake research to study the relationship between people’s investment of time, energy, and resources into urban neighborhoods, their identity in relation to their neighborhood and the city overall, and the length and intensity of their occupation. Archaeology is uniquely situated to address these questions over the course of a city’s history, with a focus on material evidence for engagement, identity, and inequality. By considering neighborhood diversity in relation to level of investment in the city, one can understand whether social, economic, and political ties created through intentional engagement lead people to stay and continue to participate in that city or, conversely, whether a lack of such ties may lead to more rapid abandonment of those neighborhoods. This may help people understand the nuanced relationship between social investment and local participation, diversity of neighborhood identities, and the futures of modern cities from a bottom-up, grass-roots perspective. Additionally, this project will provide a space for students to learn techniques of archaeological survey and excavation as well as opportunities for the local community, which is largely comprised of immigrant or first-generation community members, to engage with and understand the similarities and differences between their modern experience of a city and those of people living in that space in the past. Focusing on the lived experiences of people in different neighborhoods in an ancient city, researchers will consider the local investments (e.g., architecture, infrastructure, neighborhood organization) and the potential benefits (e.g., access to certain goods, spaces, or activities) that coincide with actively participating in the city and its goings-on. Researchers will address these questions at a prehistoric city which was occupied by both local and non-local peoples for roughly three centuries. Using non-invasive geophysical survey to search for subterranean archaeological features, soil coring, and targeted excavation, researchers will compare two neighborhoods at the physical periphery of the city to gauge whether occupants were also socially peripheral or whether they were fully engaged in central city projects, activities, and ideas. Researchers will examine architectural style and neighborhood organization, including distribution of public buildings, proximity to causeways connecting areas of the site, mound-and-plaza groups where community ceremonies would have occurred, and areas of leveling or filling for habitation which are indicative of local level of physical and social investment. Finally, researchers will compare the proportions of material types that are typical of the central portion of the site to see if people living in these peripheral neighborhoods had access to the same kinds of objects, raw materials, and food as people living closer to the city center, i.e., is there a social benefit to fully engaging in the urban project.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.