Collaborative Research: The Fortress and the Grassroots: Archaeological Investigations of Early Complex Societies on the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia

合作研究：要塞与草根：亚美尼亚察卡霍维特平原早期复杂社会的考古调查

• 批准号: 1147577
• 负责人: Adam Smith
• 金额: $ 8.42万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-07-01 至 2013-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1147577&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Fortress; Grassroots; Archaeological; Collaborative; Research; Fortress; Grassroots; Archaeological

Funding from the National Science Foundation will underwrite two years of archaeological research by Drs. Adam T. Smith (University of Chicago), Ian Lindsay (Purdue University), and Lori Khatchadourian (Cornell University) into the rise of the earliest complex sociopolitical regimes in southern Caucasia during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1500-1150 BC). The co-PIs will join their long-time collaborator, Dr. Ruben Badalyan (Armenian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography), and an interdisciplinary team of specialists in faunal and floral analysis, archaeometallurgy, and geochemistry to investigate regionally distinctive approaches to political authority through two seasons of excavations at the fortress sites of Gegharot and Tsaghkahovit in central Armenia. Traditional models of the rise of political complexity, built around archetypal centers such as Mesopotamia and the Maya lowlands, typically describe the origins of archaic states as the result of a gradual coalescence of settled agricultural communities, the surpluses from which fueled emerging political economies. In southern Caucasia, our research to date has revealed a different course of political coalescence during the mid-2nd millennium BC, when complex polities emerged not from settled farming villages but from nomadic, hierarchical pastoral groups.Prior excavations at the fortresses of Gegharot and Tsaghkahovit have uncovered tantalizing evidence of emergent political formation manifested in architecturally discrete areas for elite institutions. Most intriguingly, cultic buildings at Gegharot, complete with altar and ritual equipment (such as censors), revealed evidence of storage and metalworking, suggesting well-integrated political, economic, and ritual institutions. At the other end of the social spectrum, test excavations and a pilot magnetometry survey at the base of the Tsaghkahovit fortress have provided the first documented accounts of a Late Bronze Age residential complex; significantly, however, the informality of the domestic architecture, combined with relatively thin, single-floor occupation layers, hints that the settlement may not have been as enduring as the fortresses that oversaw them, possibly a result of seasonal occupation by transhuman pastoralists. Our research seeks to understand the internal factors through which solidarity was maintained as sedentary political institutions faced the prospect of legitimizing their right to rule over subject populations seeking to maintain their historical legacy of mobility. Through continued detailed excavations and geophysical survey, our goal is to develop a detailed model of the practices that bound the region into a coherent socio-political order by charting the formation, operation, and ultimate collapse of Late Bronze Age regimes at the intersection of the fortress and the grassroots.The resulting data will impact broader debates that center on the formation of complex socio-political regimes, the constitution of subject communities, and the inter-digitation of settled institutions and nomadic pastoralists. The project will also train American and Armenian graduate students in advanced archaeological data collection, recording, sampling, and remote sensing techniques. Materials from the proposed excavations will provide the foundation for exhibits planned for the Yerevan Museum in 2012 and the Oriental Institute (Chicago) in 2013. Project staff will also continue to offer periodic lectures on its activities in the local schools of the Tsaghkahovit plain.

国家科学基金会的资金将由Drs筹集两年的考古研究。亚当·T·史密斯（芝加哥大学），伊恩·林赛（伊恩·林赛（Ian Lindsay）（普渡大学）和洛里·卡塔杜里亚（Lori Khatchadourian）（康奈尔大学）在青铜时代晚期（约1500-1150 BC）期间，南部高加索地区最早的复杂社会政治政权崛起。 Co-Pis将加入他们的长期合作者Ruben Badalyan博士（亚美尼亚考古学和人种学研究所），以及一个跨学科专家的跨学科专家团队，在动物和花卉分析，考古学上以及地球化学和地球化学，以调查乔治（Geegharot and of Cortress Armen）的两个季节，调查对政治权威的区域性独特方法。 传统的政治复杂性崛起模型建立在美索不达米亚和玛雅低地等原型中心，通常描述了古代国家的起源，这是定居的农业社区逐渐合并的结果，这些群落逐渐合并，这些杂志促进了新兴的政治经济体。在高加索南部，我们迄今为止的研究揭示了公元前2千年中的政治结合不同，当时复杂的政治不是来自定居的耕种村庄，而是来自定居的耕种村庄，而是来自游牧的，等级的牧师群体。机构。 最有趣的是，吉格哈罗特（Gegharot）的邪教建筑带有祭坛和仪式设备（例如审查员），揭示了存储和金属加工的证据，这表明政治，经济和仪式机构都融合了整合。 在社会范围的另一端，在塔萨格霍夫特堡垒底部进行的测试发掘和试点磁力测定调查提供了第一个记录在青铜时代晚期的住宅综合体的记录；然而，重要的是，国内建筑的非正式性，再加上相对较薄的单层职业层，暗示该定居点可能不像监督它们的要塞那样持久，这可能是超人牧师的季节性占领。我们的研究试图了解久坐的政治机构面临的前景，即使他们有权统治寻求维持其历史流动性历史遗产的统治权。 通过持续的详细发掘和地球物理调查，我们的目标是通过通过绘制堡垒与草根与草根的交集的形成，操作和最终的绘制，将该地区绑定到连贯的社会政治秩序的详细模型定居机构和游牧牧民的互具。 该项目还将培训美国和亚美尼亚研究生的高级考古数据收集，记录，抽样和遥感技术。 拟议发掘的材料将为2012年埃里凡博物馆和2013年东方研究所（芝加哥）计划的展览提供基础。项目工作人员还将继续为其在Tsaghkahovit Plain的当地学校提供定期讲座。