Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Long Term Establishment of Social Interactive Ties

这个项目调查社会传统如何使远距离经济适应当地社区结构。此前的研究表明，远距离经济通过创造更大的财富囤积和地位差异的机会来产生不平等，这些机会来自遥远地区的名牌商品--从而消除了当地社区的纽带。然而，历史学家和民族志学者反而发现了多个案例研究，表明以群体为导向的社会改变了远程经济相互作用的方式，以限制囤积财富和削弱整体不平等等活动。特别是考古学家发现了一些主要的城市住区，这些住区参与了长途经济，而不是保留了以社区为基础的社会结构。这种以群体为导向的社会往往是通过沉浸在传统价值观中的定期社区建设做法来维持的。虽然之前人们认为远程经济具有“同质化”效应，但经济很少凌驾于传统之上，两者往往交织在一起，产生不同的社会结果。调查远程经济如何在这种社会中本地化，将进一步了解文化在世界各地全球化领域中进行的许多可能的轨迹。这个项目专门旨在审查通过殡仪馆陶瓷实现远程经济本地化的社区建设实践的成果。在考古记录中，陶器经常作为商品流通的索引，而殡仪馆陶器通常被专门作为威望或仪式材料进行策划。这个项目关注的是一个长期从事长途贸易的地区。相关的殡仪馆传统似乎具有有限的财富囤积和地位差异，相反，通过陶瓷材料鼓励社区建设。与一个研究反应堆合作，这个项目将使用成分分析来区分陶瓷制造商，以检查这些陶瓷是如何循环的，并最终被存放在墓穴中。然后，所获得的数据将显示谁参与了这种交流，并最终能够评估社区建设做法如何成功地在长途贸易的背景下帮助维护以群体为导向的社会结构。项目数据还将用于准备面向公众的可视材料，为利益相关者总结考古研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 how social traditions may adapt long-distance economies to local community structures. Previous research suggested that long-distance economies generate inequality by creating opportunities for greater wealth hoarding and status differentiation with prestige goods from distant regions – thereby dissolving local community bonds. However, historians and ethnographers have instead discovered multiple case studies of group-oriented societies altering how long-distance economies interface to limit activities such as wealth-hoarding and blunting the overall inequality. Archaeologists in particular have found examples of major urban settlements involved in long-distance economies that instead retained community-based social structures. Such group-oriented societies are often maintained through regular community-building practices steeped in values of tradition. While it was previously thought that long-distance economies have a “homogenizing” effect, economy rarely overrides tradition and both often intertwine to produce diverse social outcomes. Investigating how long-distance economies localize in such societies will then further understanding on the many possible trajectories cultures undertake in globalizing spheres all over the world.This project specifically aims to examine the outcomes of community-building practices on the localization of long-distance economies through mortuary ceramics. Ceramics often index the circulation of goods in the archaeological record, and mortuary ceramics specifically were often curated as prestige or ritual materials. This project focuses on a region which over long periods of time was involved in long distance trade. Associated mortuary traditions appear to have limited wealth hoarding and status differentiation and instead encouraged community-building dynamics through ceramic material. In collaboration with a research reactor, this project will employ compositional analysis that differentiates ceramic manufactures to examine how such ceramics circulated and were ultimately deposited in tombs. The acquired data would then show who was involved in such exchanges and ultimately allow for evaluation of how successfully community-building practices helped preserve a group-oriented social structure in the context of long-distance trade. The project data will also be used to prepare public-facing visual materials that summarize archaeological research for stakeholders.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.