Anthropogenic Environmental Change, Agricultural Intensification, and Socio-Political Evolution in Polynesia

波利尼西亚的人为环境变化、农业集约化和社会政治演变

• 批准号: 9020750
• 负责人: Patrick Kirch
• 金额: $ 11.64万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1991
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1991-02-01 至 1993-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9020750&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Anthropogenic; Environmental; Change; Agricultural; Intensification

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Kirch and his colleagues will conduct archaeological, ecological and paleoecological research on the island of Mangaia which is part of the Cook Islands chain. They will extract several soil cores to obtain pollen to reconstruct changing vegetation over the last several thousand years. These data will be supplemented by the analysis of faunal remains which document the periods both before and after first human occupation. Geomorphological studies will show how landforms changed in response to both changing sea level and intensive human exploitation. Finally, archaeological survey and excavation will serve to elucidate the estimated 2000 year span since the first occupation of the island by humans. Dr. Kirch wishes to trace changes in population density, land use and political organization. These data will then provide a context within which to study the social organization and economy of the present day descendants. A wealth of ethnographic data exists. The islands of Polynesia provide a unique anthropological laboratory because they were all colonized in the last several thousand years by basically a single cultural group. The islands vary in size and environment and degree of isolation. The inhabitants also exhibit a number of different forms of social organization. Anthropologists have attempted to relate variation in social behavior to variation in island type and through this exercise understand the mechanisms which govern human response to environmental variation. Mangaia exhibits an unusual form of organization in which chiefly inherited rights are balanced by individually achieved status. Kirch believes that this can only be understood in terms of changing human - environment relations over time and this project is designed to investigate that interaction. This project is important for several reasons. It will increase our understanding of the organizational principles of tribal- based societies (which continue to exist in many parts of the world.). It will also show how groups act in the face of increasingly limited resources and the strategies of adaptation they develop. The work will provide data of interest to a large group of archaeologists and help to train young scientists.

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Kirch博士和他的同事们将在Mangaia岛进行考古、生态和古生态研究，Mangaia岛是库克群岛的一部分。他们将提取几个土壤核来获取花粉，以重建过去几千年里不断变化的植被。这些数据将由动物遗迹的分析来补充，这些遗迹记录了人类首次居住前后的时期。地貌学研究将显示地貌如何在海平面变化和人类密集开发的影响下发生变化。最后，考古调查和挖掘将有助于阐明自人类首次占领该岛以来估计的2000年跨度。Kirch博士希望追踪人口密度、土地使用和政治组织的变化。这些数据将为研究当今后代的社会组织和经济提供一个背景。存在着大量的人种学数据。波利尼西亚群岛提供了一个独特的人类学实验室，因为在过去的几千年里，它们基本上都被一个单一的文化群体所殖民。这些岛屿的大小、环境和隔绝程度各不相同。居民也表现出许多不同形式的社会组织。人类学家试图将社会行为的变化与岛屿类型的变化联系起来，并通过这项工作了解控制人类对环境变化的反应的机制。Mangaia展示了一种不同寻常的组织形式，在这种组织形式中，继承的权利主要与个人取得的地位相平衡。Kirch认为，这只能从人与环境关系的变化来理解，而这个项目旨在研究这种相互作用。这个项目之所以重要，有几个原因。它将增进我们对以部落为基础的社会（这种社会在世界许多地方继续存在）的组织原则的理解。它还将展示群体在面对日益有限的资源时是如何行动的，以及他们制定的适应战略。这项工作将为一大群考古学家提供感兴趣的数据，并有助于培训年轻科学家。