Heterogeneity and Complexity in Bronze Age Europe: Divergence of Social Trajectories on the Great Hungarian Plain

青铜时代欧洲的异质性和复杂性：匈牙利大平原社会轨迹的分歧

• 批准号: 1226439
• 负责人: William Parkinson
• 金额: $ 9.16万
• 依托单位: Field Museum of Natural History
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2015-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1226439&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Heterogeneity; Complexity; Bronze; Age; Europe

Under the direction of Dr. Paul Duffy and Dr. William Parkinson, funding from the National Science Foundation will support the excavation and analysis of an unusual cemetery population in Eastern Hungary dating to the Middle Bronze Age (2100 - 1400 BC). During the Bronze Age, Europe comprised a plethora of societies connected through trade, travel, and migration. In most parts of the continent, scholars believe that economic inequalities and hereditary offices emerged for the first time and regional political hierarchy flourished. In contrast, the Bronze Age cultures of Eastern Hungary are known to have undergone significant transformations in social complexity without corresponding increases in social inequality. Although studies of Bronze Age Europe have focused on the way in which hierarchy emerged and operated in complex societies, little is known of areas where agricultural and metallurgical production intensified but social inequality did not. This project offers an opportunity to study how population density, metallurgical production, and trade can substantially increase without power and control falling into the hands of a minority.The cemetery in question belongs to the Otomani culture of the Great Hungarian Plain, and the results of the analysis will be compared to cemeteries in neighboring areas. An international, multi-disciplinary team will conduct systematic investigations at the Bronze Age cemetery, examining the funerary customs, distribution of wealth, patterns of migration, and participation in macro-regional trade of its members. Thirty to forty human burials - likely inhumation, urn cremation, and scattered ash burials - will be excavated. The treatment of the body in this cemetery and the health, diet, and regional origin of individuals within it will be described based on osteological and isotopic analyses. The form, style, and origin of fine ceramics will be recorded, and the distribution of foreign trade items such as bronze and gold will be studied. The intellectual merit of this research will be to test the idea that long-distance trade and foreign ideologies were pivotal to the emergence of regional political hierarchies. The proposed research broadly impacts long-standing anthropological debates over social variability in non-state societies and brings together specialists from Canada, the United States, Hungary, and Greece to provide major training benefits for American and Hungarian students. In addition to addressing important theoretical concerns, a number of remote sensing and geoarchaeological techniques will be employed to enhance excavation planning, generate a broader picture of cemetery use, and advance the use of non-intrusive technologies for the detection of graves and other mortuary features. This combination of several independent lines of evidence to describe the mobility of people and objects in mortuary contexts will provide critical information about the trade and population shifts underlying social transformations in Bronze Age Europe, and offer insights into the range of social complexity observed worldwide.

在 Paul Duffy 博士和 William Parkinson 博士的指导下，国家科学基金会的资金将支持对匈牙利东部一个可追溯到青铜时代中期（公元前 2100 - 1400 年）的不寻常墓地人口的挖掘和分析。在青铜时代，欧洲由众多通过贸易、旅行和移民联系在一起的社会组成。学者们认为，在非洲大陆的大部分地区，经济不平等和世袭职位首次出现，区域政治等级制度蓬勃发展。相比之下，众所周知，匈牙利东部的青铜时代文化在社会复杂性方面经历了重大转变，但社会不平等却没有相应增加。尽管对欧洲青铜时代的研究主要集中在复杂社会中等级制度的出现和运作方式，但人们对农业和冶金生产集约化但社会不平等却没有集约化的地区知之甚少。该项目提供了一个机会来研究人口密度、冶金生产和贸易如何在权力和控制权不落入少数人手中的情况下大幅增加。该墓地属于匈牙利大平原的奥托马尼文化，是该分析将与邻近地区的墓地进行比较。一个国际化、多学科的团队将对青铜时代墓地进行系统调查，考察其成员的丧葬习俗、财富分配、迁徙模式以及参与宏观区域贸易的情况。将挖掘三十到四十座人类墓葬——可能是土葬、瓮火葬和散落的骨灰墓葬。将根据骨学和同位素分析来描述该墓地中尸体的处理以及墓地中个体的健康、饮食和地区起源。将记录精美陶瓷的形式、风格和起源，并研究青铜、黄金等外贸物品的分布。这项研究的智力价值将检验长途贸易和外国意识形态对于区域政治等级制度的出现至关重要的观点。拟议的研究广泛影响了关于非国家社会社会变异性的长期人类学争论，并汇集了来自加拿大、美国、匈牙利和希​​腊的专家，为美国和匈牙利学生提供重大培训好处。 除了解决重要的理论问题外，还将采用一些遥感和地质考古技术来加强挖掘规划，生成更广泛的墓地使用情况，并推进使用非侵入性技术来检测坟墓和其他太平间特征。描述太平间环境中人员和物体流动性的几条独立证据的结合将提供有关欧洲青铜时代社会转型背后的贸易和人口变化的关键信息，并提供对全世界观察到的社会复杂性范围的见解。