Great news for Selin Nugent.  She has been informed of the simultaneous award of two major research grants, a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant for her project, Urbanization in Motion: Mobile Pastoralism and Authority in the Şǝrur Valley, Azerbaijan, and a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant for Mobile Pastoralism and Power in Early Urban Centers of the Şǝrur Valley. In these projects, Selin is investigating how mobile pastoralists negotiated authority during Late Bronze/Early Iron Age (c. 1500-800 BC) urbanization in the Şǝrur Valley, Azerbaijan. Urban development is traditionally predicated on sedentary agriculture. Unlike traditional models, the South Caucasus offers a perspective in which emerging complex polities depended primarily on mobile pastoralist populations.  Selin will use strontium (₈₇Sr/₈₆Sr) and oxygen (δ₁₈O) isotope analyses on human dental enamel to identify individual seasonal mobility patterns within the local population. Mortuary analysis will complement isotopic analyses to examine the degree of control mobile people had over economic, political, and sacred resources for construction of mortuary space as reflected in style, location, and elaboration of burials. Understanding how mobile pastoralists interacted with administrative systems to negotiate space and power will be essential to unraveling how complex sociopolitical structures developed.