9408937 Kenoyer Under the direction of Dr. Jonathan Kenoyer, Ms. Heather Miller will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. Working at the site of Harappa, located in the Indus Valley of Pakistan, she will conduct a surface survey of this large urban center. The fieldwork consists of two parts. First she will note and map the location of craft activities such as smelting, ceramic and shell production, and stone tool use. She will then conduct a proton gradiometer survey to plot the distribution of underground pyrotechnological indicators. These data taken together will allow her both to reconstruct the organization of craft activities and to determine the relationship between subsurface and sub-surface materials. Sites such as Harappa are of major archaeological interest because they attest to the rise of a civilization, apparently independent of those from China and the Near East. By the third millennium BC large urban centers arose in the Indus valley, flourished and then disappeared. It appears that salinization of fragile desert soils played a major role in their demise. The trajectory of development appears different in the Indus than other regions because, in contrast to the latter, it is not clear that an elite ruling class emerged. Archaeologists wish to understand what factors led to the rise and maintenance of this phenomenon. Through her analysis of craft production, MS Miller will look at one aspect of this issue. Through an examination of the production process and its spatial distribution, MS Miller hopes to determine the extent to which it was subject to centralized control. This research is important for several reasons. It will shed new light on an extremely important archaeological site. It will increase our understanding of the processes which led to the rise of complex society and will assist in the training of a promising young scientist. ***
