Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Role of Agriculture in the Development of Social Complexity.

这个博士论文项目使用考古植物学，即研究考古遗址的植物遗骸，来研究铁器时代农业实践、环境和人类/社会因素之间的关系。在那个时期，社会经常依靠农作物和相关植物来生产日常生活所需的食物、饲料和燃料。从考古遗址中发现的植物遗骸非常适合于研究社会-环境相互作用，因为植物同时依赖社会和环境输入来生存和繁殖。植物遗骸可以用来了解不同因素对农业生产的影响，包括降雨量和土壤肥力等环境变量，以及作物收获、劳动力协调和税收等社会实践。在此期间，以前关于社会-环境相互作用的学术研究往往从陶瓷、建筑和聚落模式等间接证据中推断出本地化的农业实践。这项研究使用对植物遗骸的直接观察来检查当地和地区的模式，将数据与现有信息相结合，在整个研究期间建立对以植物为基础的农业的广泛的、地区的理解。这项研究将通过考古实验室的方法，在科学过程中教育来自代表性不足的本科生。该项目的成果将通过开放获取，并有助于促进全球合作，从一个新的角度研究古代国家一级社会的两个项目。研究人员使用植物遗骸来确定位于不同环境中的两个不同铁器时代遗址的农业实践。它致力于回答一个核心问题，即州一级社会的农业实践如何受到环境和社会因素的复杂相互作用的影响。这项研究结合了植物遗骸的定量分析、稳定同位素分析和放射性碳测年，以及对粪便球晶的观察，以评估农业所基于的环境和社会因素的动态相对投入，以及这种投入如何随地点和时间的变化而变化。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 doctoral dissertation project uses archaeobotany, the study of plant remains from archaeological sites, to examine the relationship between agricultural practices, the environment, and human/social factors during the Iron Age. Societies during that time period frequently relied on agricultural crops and associated plants to produce food, fodder, and fuel for day-to-day living. Plant remains recovered from archaeological sites are well suited to investigating social-environmental interactions because plants simultaneously rely on social and environmental input to survive and propagate. Plant remains can be used to understand the impact of different factors on agricultural production, including environmental variables like rainfall and soil fertility, and social practices like crop harvesting, labor coordination, and taxation. Previous scholarship on social-environmental interactions during this time has often inferred localized agricultural practices from indirect evidence like ceramics, architecture, and settlement patterns. This research uses direct observations of plant remains to examine both local and regional patterns, integrating data with existing information to create a broad, regional understanding of plant-based agriculture throughout the period of study. This research will educate undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds in the scientific process through archaeological lab methods. The results of this project will be available through open access and contribute to two projects that foster global collaboration to study ancient state-level societies from a new perspective.The researchers use plant remains to determine the agricultural practices of two contrasting Iron Age sites which are located in different environments. It works to answer the central question of how agricultural practices in state-level societies were influenced by a complex interplay of environmental and social factors. This study combines quantitative analysis, stable isotope analysis, and radiocarbon dating of plant remains, alongside observation of dung spherulites, to evaluate the dynamic relative input of environmental and social factors on which agriculture was based and how this varied by location and through 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.