Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Inferring Social Organization Through Mortuary Practice

博士论文改进补助金：通过太平间实践推断社会组织

• 批准号: 1440017
• 负责人: Robin Beck
• 金额: $ 2.52万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-07-01 至 2017-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1440017&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Inferring

The broad and fundamental significance of this research rests on the insight it will provide into how small scale traditional societies are organized. Placed in broader context with other such studies it has the potential to elucidate how social complexity develops and is maintained. Small scale social groupings continue to exist within nation states today and there can be practical benefit to understand how they function.Does equal treatment in death reflect equal treatment in life? The Iberian Copper Age is a period dominated by the emergence of early complex societies, which are characterized by agricultural intensification, political centralization and population aggregation. Previous research has focused on the phenomenon of collective burial to suggest that these broad-scale social processes are underwritten by a "communally-organized society." However the internal organization of such communities is still poorly understood, particularly because the preservation issues and social function of such collective burials are underexplored.This research contributes to a growing body of work on the significance of collective burials in prehistory. While this topic has merited increasing anthropological attention in recent years, few Iberian-specific analyses have been conducted that permit researchers to understand what such large-scale sites represent in terms of social organization. Importantly, a better understanding of the communal interments so characteristic of the Iberian Chalcolithic will allow for a more detailed understanding of how these amorphously "collective" early complex societies were actually organized. This project's intellectual merit lies in the fact that its multi-component bioarchaeological and archaeological analysis offers a novel approach to mortuary work in Spain, and should offer a framework for future projects. At 113 ha in size, Marroquíes Bajos is one of the largest settlements known for the time period, and contains evidence of four different burial programs. This project's bioarchaeological analysis of the mortuary variability at the site will allow for the investigation of the degree to which Iberian Copper Age societies were collectively organized. In particular, it is unclear whether collective burials mask significant differences in individuals' access to food, disease burdens and activity levels as a result of social characteristics like gender, age, or social group affiliation. Through analysis of human remains, isotopic analysis of diet, AMS radiocarbon dating, and an examination of tomb form and grave goods, this research will allow for a more nuanced reconstruction of the ways in which Copper Age societies were organized, while deepening our understanding of how and why collective burials were used by prehistoric populations.

这项研究的广泛而基本的意义取决于它将为小规模的传统社会组织的洞察力。与其他研究更广泛的背景下，它有可能阐明社会复杂性的发展和维护方式。小规模的社会群体在当今的国家国家中继续存在，并且可能会有实际的好处来了解它们的运作方式。伊比利亚铜时代是一个以早期复杂社会的出现为主的时期，其特征是农业强化，政治集中化和人口聚集。先前的研究集中在集体埋葬的现象上，以表明这些广泛的社会过程是由“共同组织的社会”承担的。然而，此类社区的内部组织仍然尚不清楚，尤其是因为这种集体埋葬的准备问题和社会功能尚未得到充实。这项研究促进了越来越多的工作，就集体埋葬在史前历史上的重要性。尽管该主题近年来值得越来越多的人类学关注，但很少进行伊比利亚特定的分析，可以使研究人员能够了解社会组织中这样的大规模站点所代表的代表。重要的是，更好地理解伊比利亚核石石器时代的特征将使人们对这些非法“集体”早期复杂社会的实际组织如何有了更详细的了解。该项目的智力优点在于其多组分生物考古学和考古分析为西班牙的Mortuary工作提供了新的方法，并应为未来的项目提供框架。 MarroquíesBajos的大小为113公顷，是该时期已知的最大定居点之一，并包含四个不同埋葬计划的证据。该项目对现场的Mortuary变异性的生物考古学分析将允许对伊比利亚铜时代社会的集体组织的程度进行投资。特别是，尚不清楚集体埋葬是否掩盖了由于性别，年龄或社会团体分支机构等社会特征而导致的个人获得食物，疾病负担和活动水平的机会显着差异。通过对人类遗体的分析，对饮食的同位素分析，AMS放射性碳测年以及对坟墓形式和坟墓商品的检查，这项研究将使对组织铜时代社会组织的方式进行更细致的重建，同时加深我们对史前历史种群如何和为什么使用集体埋葬的理解。