Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Chronologically Related Changes in Material Culture Composition

博士论文改进奖：物质文化构成的时间相关变化

• 批准号: 2040074
• 负责人: Kenneth Sassaman
• 金额: $ 3.02万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-11-15 至 2022-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2040074&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Award; Chronologically

This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the factors underlying long term social change. It will use geochemical, petrographic, and other technical data derived from pottery along the northern Gulf Coast of Florida to examine social changes associated with the abandonment of large size settlements in which people lived. Judging from the diversity of settlement and pottery technology that followed, social outcomes varied. The objective of this research is to determine the extent to which these changes involved social movements. Social movements in the modern world are often the impetus for transformative social change, including those which are often called "collapse." However recent scholarship on societal collapse has illuminated how social groups in fact can enact structural change through deliberate collective action, a curative to the bias that collapse was necessarily a matter of failure or "devolution" of society. In its emphasis on materiality and the material conditions of human experience, study of the past holds good potential for contributing to the cross-cultural study of social movements well beyond the reach of ethnography, sociology, and literary history.Pottery from 12 sites across the study area will provide data on clay provenance (neutron activation analysis), composition (petrography), manufacture and use (technofunctional analysis), and surface treatment (stylistic analysis) as analytical proxies for social identity and affiliation. Pottery from sites spanning the period of abandonment and resettlement varies wildly with respect to surface treatment and vessel form, Provenance and compositional data may be equally variable, but this is not yet known. Compositional data embody choices for clays and aplastic additives that carry the weight of tradition inconspicuously, and are thus possibly indicative of shared practices that took form over generations of co-residency of potters at civic-ceremonial centers and then continued into the ensuing centuries of dispersed settlement. As the samples for this project are drawn from sites on public lands that are vulnerable to the negative effects of rising seas, this research will contribute to federal mandates for the inventory, assessment, and conservation of archaeological sites. Furthermore, this research will: (1) contribute to ongoing archaeological critique of popular "collapse" narratives and the development of alternatives based on empirical studies; (2) add information concerning a period of time that is poorly understood in the area and throughout the southeastern United States; and (3) provide case material to the growing body of studies on the archaeological signatures and material implications of social movements.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.

该博士论文研究项目将研究长期社会变革背后的因素。它将使用从佛罗里达州北部墨西哥湾沿岸的陶器中获得的地球化学、岩相学和其他技术数据来研究与人们居住的大型定居点的废弃相关的社会变化。 从随后的定居点和陶器技术的多样性来看，社会结果各不相同。这项研究的目的是确定这些变化在多大程度上涉及社会运动。现代世界的社会运动往往是社会变革的推动力，包括那些通常被称为“崩溃”的社会运动。然而，最近关于社会崩溃的学术研究阐明了社会群体实际上如何通过有意识的集体行动来实施结构性变革，这是对认为崩溃必然是社会失败或“权力下放”问题的偏见的一种治疗方法。由于强调人类经验的物质性和物质条件，对过去的研究在促进社会运动的跨文化研究方面具有巨大的潜力，远远超出了民族志、社会学和文学史的范围。来自全国 12 个地点的陶器研究区域将提供有关粘土来源（中子活化分析）、成分（岩相学）、制造和使用（技术功能分析）以及表面处理（风格分析）的数据，作为社会认同和归属的分析指标。跨越废弃和重新安置时期的遗址的陶器在表面处理和器皿形状方面差异很大，出处和成分数据可能同样存在差异，但这一点尚不清楚。成分数据体现了对粘土和再生添加剂的选择，这些添加剂不那么明显地承载着传统的重量，因此可能表明了在公民仪式中心几代陶艺者共同居住期间形成的共同做法，然后持续到随后的几个世纪的分散时期。沉降。由于该项目的样本取自容易受到海平面上升负面影响的公共土地上的地点，因此这项研究将有助于联邦对考古遗址的清查、评估和保护的授权。此外，这项研究将：（1）有助于对流行的“崩溃”叙事进行持续的考古批评，并基于实证研究开发替代方案； (2) 添加有关该地区和整个美国东南部知之甚少的一段时期的信息； (3) 为越来越多的关于考古特征和社会运动的重大影响的研究提供案例材料。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。