Collaborative Research: The Role Of Climate In Agricultural Intensification And Settlement Trends

合作研究：气候在农业集约化和定居趋势中的作用

• 批准号: 2050427
• 负责人: Amber VanDerwarker
• 金额: $ 5.97万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2050427&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Role; Climate; Agricultural

The investigators will examine the cooperative relationships among farmers and government institutions that enabled the development of about 150 sq km of prehistoric agricultural raised fields. This occurred during a period of peak population density and complexity with settlements established around monumental earthen constructions, including temples and ballcourts that drew people together for religious ceremony. To feed this population, local groups pooled their labor to convert natural wetlands into highly productive raised fields by digging a network of drainage canals and piling the fertile soils onto raised planting platforms. The whole system eventually failed. Monumental constructions ceased, raised fields were no longer maintained, and people either migrated elsewhere or disbanded to live in smaller, self-sustained farmsteads. These types of collective arrangements remain imperative today as government agricultural subsidies and support programs, as well as farmer co-ops, have had varied successes and failures. The social and environmental conditions of agriculture continuously change due to climatic variability, erosion, soil fertility losses, and the willingness of individual farmers to cooperate both with each other and government institutions. These uncertainties, which have plagued all agricultural societies since the earliest domesticates, cannot be easily projected into the future, so we turn to the long-term approach of archaeology. The region of study presents the complete cycle from intensification of agricultural infrastructure to its ultimate failure.The project focuses on a case study where detailed satellite and aerial remote sensing has identified remains of ancient agricultural field systems. Coring and trenching in the raised fields will reveal construction techniques and duration of use with geochemical analysis to assess soil fertility. Samples from fields will be used to date their construction and abandonment, and to determine what crops were grown in these fields through macro- and micro-botanical analysis. These data will be compared with that collected from survey and excavations as a means to reconstruct settlement history relative to raised field construction. Excavations will target households of different statuses to understand how wealth and power relationships changed over time. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on lagoon cores will model how the climate changed from the beginning to the end of this period of agricultural intensification. Together, these data will present a picture of the social, political, religious, and environmental factors that fostered an era of cooperation that led to the development of an intensive agricultural system and levels of monumentality not seen before in this region. Perhaps more importantly, the project will uncover the reasons why such collective action ceased. Regardless of the differences in scale and technology, this case shares many of the same social, political, and environmental concerns with our modern farming systems.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.

调查人员将研究农民和政府机构之间的合作关系，这些关系能够发展约150平方公里的史前农业饲养领域。这发生在人口峰值密度和复杂性时期，周围建立了巨大的泥土建筑，包括寺庙和舞台，这些寺庙和舞会吸引了人们参加宗教仪式。为了养活这一人群，当地团体通过挖掘排水管网络并将肥沃的土壤堆积到升高的种植平台上，将自然湿地汇集起来，将天然湿地转化为高效的凸起领域。整个系统最终失败了。 纪念性建筑停止了，不再维持高架领域，人们要么迁移到其他地方，要么解散了生活在较小的自我维持的农场。今天，由于政府农业补贴和支持计划以及农民合作社的成功和失败，这些类型的集体安排仍然必须进行。由于气候变异性，侵蚀，土壤肥力损失以及各个农民彼此合作和政府机构的意愿，农业的社会和环境条件不断变化。这些不确定性从最早的家人开始困扰着所有农业社会，无法轻易投射到未来，因此我们转向考古学的长期方法。研究区域介绍了从农业基础设施的强化到其最终失败的完整周期。该项目着重于一个案例研究，其中详细的卫星和空中遥感已经确定了古代农业现场系统的遗迹。在凸起的田地中加油和挖沟将揭示施工技术和使用时间，并与地球化学分析评估土壤生育能力。田野的样本将用于约会其建设和遗弃，并通过宏观和微植物分析确定这些田间种植的作物。这些数据将与调查和发掘收集的数据进行比较，以作为与较高的现场构建相对于定居历史的一种手段。发掘将针对具有不同地位的家庭，以了解财富和权力关系如何随着时间而变化。基于泻湖岩心的古环境重建将模拟从这个农业强化时期的开始到结束的气候如何变化。这些数据将共同介绍社会，政治，宗教和环境因素的图片，这些因素促进了合作时代，从而导致了强化农业体系的发展以及该地区以前未见的纪念性水平。也许更重要的是，该项目将揭开这种集体行动停止的原因。无论规模和技术的差异如何，此案都与我们的现代农业系统共享许多相同的社会，政治和环境问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的评估标准来通过评估来获得支持的。