HSD: Collaborative Research: Development and Resilience of Complex Socioeconomic Systems: A Theoretical Model and Case Study from the Maya Lowlands

HSD：协作研究：复杂社会经济系统的发展和复原力：玛雅低地的理论模型和案例研究

• 批准号: 0827312
• 负责人: David Bottjer
• 金额: $ 8.06万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-15 至 2012-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0827312&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: HSD; Collaborative; Research; Development; Resilience

Societies marked by administrative hierarchies, rulers, and high degrees of integration developed in multiple locations around the world beginning 8,000 years ago. The process was episodic and marked by frequent economic failure and political disintegration, in some instances in the context of abrupt climate change. This interdisciplinary research project will develop a human-landscape-climate model for the emergence and resilience of complex socioeconomic systems and will apply and test the predictions of the model with extant data and findings from new research in the tropical Maya lowlands of southern Belize. The project's primary goal is to model human behavioral responses to environmental transformation, whether abrupt or gradual, by linking together processes of settlement, resource exploitation, agricultural intensification, competition, and polity stability. The project aims to develop a general theoretical model that integrates population density and distribution, environmental suitability as a function of economic intensification and endogenous environmental change, and political exploitation. A secondary goal is to test this model at Uxbenka, a Maya polity that formed in southern Belize between from 4,000 to 1,500 years before the present (BP). Archaeological work in the region suggests that integrated, spatially extensive societies formed in the context of demographic expansion, agricultural intensification, environmental degradation, and eventual fragmentation. The available paleoclimatic data indicate that an abrupt decrease in rainfall played a role in the disintegration of certain polities from 2,100 BP to 1,800 BP. This episode was followed by the reintegration and proliferation of yet more complex societies after 1800 BP. Many of these collapsed completely at 1000 BP, again within the context of abrupt climate change. Extant data from a century of research in this region, complemented by new paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and ethnographic investigation in southern Belize will guide the construction and appraisal of models meant to capture the causes of these events.Climate change in the context of human-induced environmental degradation is an acute problem facing the increasingly interdependent global community of nearly six billion people. It presents difficult policy issues of great importance for contemporary societies. Climatic variability on multiple timescales can elicit a range of human responses that depend on the distribution and density of human populations, their modes of production, effects on environment, forms of political integration, and control via coercion or ideological manipulation by administrative hierarchies. General models capable of incorporating these complex interactions are essential for exploring the stability and vulnerability of complex socioeconomic systems. Southern Belize provides a well-researched environmental and cultural context for the interdisciplinary, empirical studies necessary to build and test such models and to appraise effective and ineffective responses. Along with academic and popular publications, the research team will develop education modules for primary and secondary schools in the U.S and Belize, provide teacher workshops and community outreach for sustainable development, and offer project-based interdisciplinary experiences for university students in the U.S. and Belize. Project data, analyses and models will be made available through an on-line archive. An award resulting from the FY 2008 NSF-wide competition on Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) supports this project. All NSF directorates and offices are involved in the coordinated management of the HSD competition and the portfolio of HSD awards.

从 8000 年前开始，以行政等级、统治者和高度一体化为特征的社会在世界各地发展起来。 这一过程是间歇性的，其特点是频繁的经济失败和政治瓦解，有时是在气候突变的背景下发生的。 这个跨学科研究项目将为复杂的社会经济系统的出现和恢复力开发一个人文-景观-气候模型，并将利用伯利兹南部热带玛雅低地的现有数据和新研究结果应用和测试该模型的预测。 该项目的主要目标是通过将定居、资源开发、农业集约化、竞争和政体稳定的过程联系起来，模拟人类对环境转变的行为反应，无论是突然的还是渐进的。 该项目旨在开发一个通用理论模型，将人口密度和分布、作为经济集约化和内生环境变化函数的环境适宜性以及政治剥削结合起来。 第二个目标是在乌克斯本卡（Uxbenka）测试这个模型，乌克斯本卡是一个玛雅政体，于距今 4,000 至 1,500 年间在伯利兹南部形成。 该地区的考古工作表明，在人口扩张、农业集约化、环境退化和最终分裂的背景下，形成了一体化的、空间广泛的社会。 现有的古气候数据表明，距今 2,100 年至 1,800 年期间，降雨量的突然减少在某些政体的解体中发挥了作用。 这一事件之后，距今 1800 年之后，更加复杂的社会重新融合并扩散。 其中许多在距今 1000 年完全崩溃，同样是在气候突变的背景下。 该地区一个世纪以来研究的现有数据，加上伯利兹南部新的古环境、考古和人种学调查，将指导模型的构建和评估，以捕捉这些事件的原因。人类引起的气候变化环境退化是近六十亿人口日益相互依存的全球社会面临的一个严重问题。 它提出了对当代社会非常重要的棘手政策问题。 多个时间尺度上的气候变化可以引发一系列人类反应，这些反应取决于人口的分布和密度、生产方式、对环境的影响、政治一体化的形式以及行政等级通过强制或意识形态操纵进行的控制。 能够纳入这些复杂相互作用的通用模型对于探索复杂社会经济系统的稳定性和脆弱性至关重要。 伯利兹南部为构建和测试此类模型以及评估有效和无效应对措施所必需的跨学科实证研究提供了经过充分研究的环境和文化背景。 除了学术和流行出版物外，研究团队还将为美国和伯利兹的中小学开发教育模块，提供教师讲习班和社区外展以促进可持续发展，并为美国和伯利兹的大学生提供基于项目的跨学科体验。 项目数据、分析和模型将通过在线档案提供。 2008 财年 NSF 范围内的人类和社会动力学 (HSD) 竞赛所颁发的奖项支持了该项目。 所有 NSF 理事会和办公室都参与 HSD 竞赛和 HSD 奖项组合的协调管理。