Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Community Organization and Lithic Production

This project examines the relationship between craft production and socioeconomic inequality in a rural ancient community. To this end, researchers will explore households to assess if inequality resulted from access to specialized production of stone tools. Archaeology is uniquely able to provide the time depth necessary to seek the genesis of socioeconomic inequality and within this context, this research will scrutinize its articulation with craft production.

This project will train a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students in archaeological field and laboratory methods, as well as data analysis, grant writing, and conference presentations. Beyond training scholars, the project works to engage the local community in the archaeological process and the preservation of cultural heritage through site visits and talks, as well as participation in the research.

Finally, the results of this research will be shared through academic presentations, journal articles, and public events to provide access to a broad audience.

Craft specialization is an important social process that influences and is influenced by many other aspects of life among community members. These social and economic processes are particularly important in communities of practice. Communities of practice are defined by a collective pursuit of a particular endeavor, often a specific industry or craft.

This research will expand the understanding of such communities of practice and the socioeconomic dynamics adjacent to specialized, large-scale production. To accomplish this, the project will focus on households at a single site which produced millions of stone tools that were essential for nearly all daily tasks including agriculture, construction, and food preparation.

However, households in the community had varied proximities to the stone tool production areas, suggesting different relationships to the production activities. The research team will explore household compounds that form plazas in the community to identify socioeconomic differences in the material remains and activities of each. This project builds on previous surveys and excavation of the community and implements a three-phase methodological approach, targeting three plazas through 1) systematic shovel testing, 2) test excavations, and 3) extensive laboratory analyses.

Analyses will first establish a chronology of the households, and then make comparisons about the access to long-distance trade goods and prestige materials, as well as the activities that occurred within each household. Results from this research will provide an important case study to understand how collective activities produce socioeconomic differences among households in communities of practice.

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.