Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Relationship Among Environment, Culture And Agricultural Intensification

博士论文改进奖：环境、文化与农业集约化的关系

• 批准号: 1614330
• 负责人: Tristram Kidder
• 金额: $ 1.9万
• 依托单位: Washington University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-05-01 至 2018-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1614330&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Award; Relationship; Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Award; Relationship

Over the last 10,000 years, agriculture has gradually replaced hunting and gathering, and became the globally dominant food resource. Agricultural productivity provides a solid foundation for population growth, social complexity and the emergence of cities and states. However, there is a huge intellectual gap between our understanding of the earliest domestication and cultivation of limited crops and intensive agriculture practiced by early states. How was agriculture intensified over time? What resources were required to intensify food production? What is the driving force behind the processes of agricultural intensification? Questions concerning agricultural intensification have attracted but also puzzled scholars in various fields for a long time. Within this broader context, Dr. Tristram R. Kidder and Mr. Zhen Qin, of Washington University in St. Louis, will undertake research in the Central Plain of China to explore the process of agricultural intensification, defined as an increase in the productive output per unit of land, and its relationship with environmental change. This project will provide first-hand field data on buried agricultural fields and therefore be helpful for both testing ideas about agriculture put forth in historical written documents and gaining new comprehension of agricultural intensification; it will also make theoretical contribution to agricultural intensification from an site-specific, bottom-up perspective by use of well-preserved archaeological datasets. Beyond academia, this project also has broader impacts. Firstly, it will contribute to the local community by recruiting local people to do fieldwork, including coring, test excavation, and sampling. Through their participation, a deeper understanding of their history and identity will be gained. Secondly, this project will be carried out in collaboration with the local institute and this collaboration will promote mutual understanding and trust through the team working and reciprocal learning between U.S. and Chinese researchers who are from different cultural traditions.To obtain a further understanding of how agricultural intensification was achieved and why agriculture was intensified, Dr. Kidder, Mr. Qin and their collaborators in China will conduct a large-scale excavation of ancient fields, a systematic collection of soil samples, and a comprehensive analysis of geoarchaeological results. The excavation will be carried out at Sanyangzhuang site, Neihuang County, Henan Province in central China. In this site, three strata of ancient agricultural field with ridge-and-furrow features, have been found. Based on these unique relics well preserved by the Yellow River flood sediments, the research team will explore the question of "how" by examining the field management techniques, including plowing, manuring, and irrigation, as an implementation path of agricultural intensification; micromophology and elemental analysis also will be deployed. For the question of "why", local paleoenvironment will be reconstructed and environment-induced risks, such as climate changes and the Yellow River floods, will be investigated as one of major driving forces of agricultural intensification by means of isotopic analysis and conventional geoarchaeological analysis.

在过去的10，000年中，农业逐渐取代了狩猎和聚会，并成为全球占主导地位的食品资源。农业生产力为人口增长，社会复杂性以及城市和国家的出现奠定了坚实的基础。但是，我们对最早驯化的理解与对有限农作物的种植与早期国家实践的强化农业之间存在巨大差异。农业如何随着时间的推移加剧？加强粮食生产需要什么资源？农业强化过程背后的推动力是什么？关于农业强化的问题吸引了很长时间，但在各个领域都困惑了学者。在更广泛的背景下，圣路易斯华盛顿大学的Tristram R. Kidder博士和Zhen Qin博士将在中国中部进行研究，以探索农业强化的过程，定义为土地单位的生产产量的提高及其与环境变化的关系。该项目将提供有关埋葬农业领域的第一手现场数据，因此有助于对历史书面文件中提出的农业的测试思想以及对农业强化的新理解；它还将通过使用保存完好的考古数据集从特定于地点的自下而上的角度来对农业强化做出理论上的贡献。除了学术界，该项目还具有更广泛的影响。首先，它将通过招募当地人进行野外工作，包括芯片，测试发掘和抽样来为当地社区做出贡献。通过他们的参与，将获得对他们的历史和身份的更深入的理解。 Secondly, this project will be carried out in collaboration with the local institute and this collaboration will promote mutual understanding and trust through the team working and reciprocal learning between U.S. and Chinese researchers who are from different cultural traditions.To obtain a further understanding of how agricultural intensification was achieved and why agriculture was intensified, Dr. Kidder, Mr. Qin and their collaborators in China will conduct a large-scale excavation of ancient fields, a systematic collection of soil样本，以及对地理学结果的全面分析。该发掘将在中国中部河南省Neihuang县的Sanyangzhuang遗址进行。在这个地点，已经发现了三个具有山脊和潮流特征的古代农田层。基于黄河洪水沉积物保存得很好的这些独特的文物，研究小组将探讨“如何通过研究野外管理技术（包括耕作，粪便和灌溉）作为农业强化的实施道路，以探讨“如何”的问题；微观学和元素分析也将被部署。对于“为什么”的问题，将重建当地的古环境，并通过同位素分析和常规的地质学分析来研究将环境引起的风险（例如气候变化和黄河洪水）作为农业强化的主要驱动力之一。