Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Ceremonial Organization And Social Structure

博士论文改进奖：礼仪组织与社会结构

• 批准号: 1837840
• 负责人: Robert Drennan
• 金额: $ 2.52万
• 依托单位: University of Pittsburgh
• 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: 2018-08-01 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1837840&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Award; Ceremonial

More than 6000 years ago, small regional polities emerged for the first time in what is now northeastern China. These Hongshan societies represented the early stages in the evolution of forms of organization that integrated the people of different local communities into networks of social, political, and economic relationships. They thus represent the very beginnings of the much larger-scale, highly integrated societies in which most of the world's population now lives. These regional societies were still very small; each including only 1,000 people or so in a territory about 10 km across. Some families clearly enjoyed more social prestige and influence than others, attributable primarily to their special religious and ritual roles. Dozens if not hundreds of such small regional societies were connected with each other through a common focus on a complex of extraordinary ceremonial structures in which very highly prestigious individuals were buried. This complex at Niuheliang seems to have functioned primarily as a religious pilgrimage center, with a relatively small community of permanent residents, who lived in a hilly region with very little agricultural potential. Under the direction of Dr. Robert Drennan, doctoral candidate Weiyu Ran will carry out fieldwork at the nearby Hongshan-period village of Shangchaoyanggou to investigate how the provisioning of this pilgrimage center was organized. Several villages, of which Shangchaoyanggou was one, were located a few kilometers from the ritual facilities of Niuheliang in much more favorable locations for farming and may have specialized in producing food to sustain the nearby pilgrimage center. If this is the kind of organization that had emerged in Hongshan times, it represented a major step toward more highly developed economies and greater interdependence between households and local communities than ever before.Mr. Ran will evaluate this hypothetical reconstruction of early Hongshan economies and the organization that sustained the pilgrimage center at Niuheliang by collecting data on the cultural remains left behind thousands of years ago by the inhabitants of Shangchaoyanggou. The parts of this refuse that have been preserved for so long are mostly fragments of broken pottery vessels and stone tools. If Shangchaoyanggo focused heavily on agricultural production then the data Mr. Ran collects will show high proportions of agricultural tools and low proportions of the elaborate pottery vessels that signaled social prestige (when compared to the artifacts of ordinary Hongshan communities or to those remaining at residential locations near the most important ritual structures). If this is what the research results show, it will be clear that in at least some instances a very early focus on religion and ritual as a principal means of social integration can lead to the development of the more advanced economic systems upon which even larger-scale political integration eventually was based.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.

超过6000年前，小型地区政治首次出现在现在的中国东北部。这些洪山社会在组织形式的演变中代表了早期阶段，该阶段将不同当地社区的人民融入社会，政治和经济关系网络。因此，它们代表了众多大多数世界人口现在生活的大规模，高度融合的社会的开始。这些地区社会仍然很小。每个人只有1000人左右，在约10公里的范围内。一些家庭显然比其他家庭享有更多的社会声望和影响力，主要归因于他们的特殊宗教和仪式角色。数十个这样的小区域社会（即使不是数十个这样的小社会）通过共同的关注彼此相连，这是通过对非凡的仪式结构的共同关注，在这些仪式结构中，埋葬了非常享有声望的人。 Niuheliang的这个综合大楼似乎主要是一个宗教朝圣中心，拥有相对较小的永久居民社区，他们生活在一个丘陵地区，农业潜力很小。在罗伯特·德伦南（Robert Drennan）博士的指导下，博士候选人Weiyu Ran将在附近的Hongshan-Period村进行实地调查，以调查如何组织这个朝圣中心的供应。 Shangchaoyanggou的几个村庄位于更有利的农业地点，距离Niuheliang的仪式设施几公里，并可能专门生产食物来维持附近的朝圣中心。如果这是在洪山时代出现的那种组织，那么它比以往任何时候都迈出了高度发达经济体和家庭与当地社区之间更大的相互依存的重要一步。 RAN将评估早期洪山经济体的这种假设的重建，以及通过收集上几年前上几千年前的文化遗体数据来维持纽约里安格的朝圣中心的组织。这种垃圾的部分被保存了这么长时间，主要是破碎的陶器和石材工具的碎片。如果Shangchaoyanggo大量专注于农业生产，那么Ran Collects先生的数据将显示出高比例的农业工具和较低比例的精美陶器船，这些陶器表明了社会声望（与普通的Hongshan社区或居住在居住位置的人工制品相比，接近最重要的仪式结构）。如果这是研究结果表明的，那么很明显，至少在某些情况下，很早就着眼于宗教和仪式作为社会融合的主要手段，可能会导致更高级的经济体系的发展，甚至更大 - 规模政治融合最终是基于的。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的评论标准的评估值得支持的。