Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Agriculture And The Development Of Social Complexity

University Of Connecticut, Storrs CT

Investigators

Abstract

Dr. Alexia Smith and Madelynn von Baeyer, of the University of Connecticut, will use archaeobotany, the study of the relationship between plants and ancient people, to examine how plant use contributes to the process of social complexity. Archaeologists often cite changes in access to or control of agricultural goods as an important factor in developing social hierarchies, and this project will examine these assumptions. This research will contribute to global discussions of the dynamic relationship between agricultural practices, a range of environmental factors, and the social, political, and economic roles of groups of people. Within this context, this project will broaden the current cultural discourse on food and the impacts of food production by addressing the relationship between social complexity and crop production during a time of environmental flux. The research will provide the basis for Madelynn's doctoral dissertation thesis and thus contribute to the intellectual and academic development of a promising scientist. Smith and von Baeyer will examine Late Chalcolithic (4000 B.C.- 3100 B.C.) remains from Çadýr Höyük, a multi-period site in central Anatolia that spans the Middle Chalcolithic to Byzantine periods in order to identify patterns of plant use including: species and plant parts used, the diversity of plant-related activities across the site, household labor organization, and plant-based markers of incipient social complexity. This project will integrate plant data with ethnographic and ecological data, as well as data from the Çadýr Höyük excavations including architectural context, spatial distribution of samples, and artifact distribution. The Late Chalcolithic period in central Anatolia is an ideal period to study how plants contribute to bourgeoning social complexity outside of the Mesopotamian heartland owing to the emergence of rural regional centers like Çadýr, defensive walls, and extensive trade networks at that time. This project will contribute to the growing understanding of the variety of different trajectories by which social complexity emerged in SW Asia and around the world.