This federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (CFDA 47.075) program provides $142,423 to the University of Missouri System, doing business as Curators of the University of Missouri, to conduct collaborative research on the role of climate in agricultural intensification and settlement trends.
The key products and services to be delivered through this 18-month award include: 1) Examining the cooperative relationships among farmers and government institutions that enabled the development of approximately 150 sq km of prehistoric agricultural raised fields, 2) Conducting fieldwork involving coring, trenching, and geochemical analysis of the raised fields to determine construction techniques, duration of use, and crop types, 3) Excavating households of different socioeconomic statuses to understand how wealth and power relationships changed over time, and 4) Developing paleoenvironmental reconstructions from lagoon cores to model climate changes during the period of agricultural intensification. This multidisciplinary research aims to provide insights into the social, political, religious, and environmental factors that fostered collective action leading to the development of an intensive agricultural system, as well as the reasons why such cooperation ultimately ceased.