Collaborative Research: Examination of Sites on the Georgia Bight Coastline

合作研究：乔治亚湾海岸线遗址考察

• 批准号: 1748276
• 负责人: Victor Thompson
• 金额: $ 18.9万
• 依托单位: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-15 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1748276&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Examination; Sites; Georgia

More than fifty shell rings - large circular deposits of shellfish, artifacts, and other food remains surrounding broad, open plazas - can be found along the southeastern U.S. coast. Dating to the Late Archaic (circa 5,000 - 3,500 cal B.P.), these sites appear across roughly 2,500 km of shoreline between South Carolina and Mississippi and contain exceptionally well-preserved evidence of the first large-scale settlements in the region, though they are now gravely threatened by rising sea levels. With support from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Matt Sanger of Binghamton University, Victor Thompson of the University of Georgia, and Thad Bissett of Northern Kentucky University will investigate these sites by focusing on how previously mobile Late Archaic peoples adapted to a changing landscape (e.g., fluctuating sea levels) and built larger, more complex, and increasingly diverse societies. In seeking to settle long-standing disagreements over the function of shell rings, this project will generate new data and new models that will be of interest a broad range of archaeologists, anthropologists, and other researchers studying the earliest stages of large-scale human settlement, both in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. Comparative analysis across the thirteen sites selected for this study will help resolve a decades-long debate over whether shell rings were ritual gathering points, year-round villages, or a mix of the two. Likewise, this work will also look at factors behind the development of such large Late Archaic communities - namely, whether they were driven by incipient sedentism, religious communality, expansive exchange systems, localized adaptations, or shared encounters on a daily or intermittent basis. Few shell rings have been studied systematically using comparable standards and methods, which has made it impossible to create dependable models for how or why the Late Archaic ring builders developed larger and more expansive societies in these places. This project seeks to create a robust, dependable corpus of data on shell rings by establishing shared standards of fieldwork and laboratory analysis that will be applied across all shell ring sites. The collaborative team will conduct geophysical surveys, excavations, and radiometric and isotopic analyses at thirteen key sites along the Georgia Bight. In addition to testing, refining, and disseminating best practices for current and future archaeologists interested in studying shell rings, this work will create a comparative dataset capable of answering critical questions about how the function of these sites may have varied over time and across space.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在美国东南部海岸，可以发现五十多个贝壳环，即围绕着宽阔开放广场的贝类、文物和其他食物遗存的大型圆形沉积物。这些遗址的历史可以追溯到古风晚期（大约距今 5,000 - 3,500 年），遍布南卡罗来纳州和密西西比州之间约 2,500 公里的海岸线，包含保存完好的该地区第一个大规模定居点的证据，尽管它们现在已成为历史。受到海平面上升的严重威胁。在国家科学基金会的支持下，博士。宾厄姆顿大学的马特·桑格、佐治亚大学的维克多·汤普森和北肯塔基大学的萨德·比塞特将调查这些遗址，重点关注以前流动的晚期古风民族如何适应不断变化的景观（例如，波动的海平面）并建造更大的、社会更加复杂、更加多样化。为了解决关于贝壳环功能的长期分歧，该项目将产生新数据和新模型，这将引起考古学家、人类学家和其他研究大规模人类住区最早阶段的研究人员的广泛兴趣，无论是在美国还是世界其他地区。对本研究选定的十三个地点进行比较分析将有助于解决长达数十年的争论，即贝壳环是仪式聚集点、全年村庄还是两者的混合。同样，这项工作还将探讨如此大型的晚期古风社区发展背后的因素，即它们是否是由初期的定居、宗教社区、广泛的交换系统、局部适应或日常或间歇性的共同遭遇所驱动。很少有人使用类似的标准和方法对贝壳环进行系统研究，这使得无法创建可靠的模型来解释晚期古风环建造者如何或为何在这些地方发展出更大、更广阔的社会。该项目旨在通过建立适用于所有贝壳环站点的现场工作和实验室分析的共享标准，创建一个强大、可靠的贝壳环数据集。合作团队将在乔治亚湾沿岸的 13 个关键地点进行地球物理调查、挖掘以及辐射和同位素分析。除了为当前和未来有兴趣研究贝壳环的考古学家测试、完善和传播最佳实践之外，这项工作还将创建一个比较数据集，能够回答有关这些遗址的功能如何随时间和空间变化的关键问题。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Collective action and shellfish harvesting practices among Late Archaic villagers of the South Atlantic Bight

南大西洋湾晚期古代村民的集体行动和贝类捕捞实践

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101483
• 发表时间: 2023-03
• 期刊: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
• 影响因子: 1.8
• 作者: Garland, Carey J.;Thompson, Victor D.
• 通讯作者: Thompson, Victor D.