Dissertation Research: Zooarchaeological Analysis of Subsistence and Social Organization at the Middle to Late Woodland Transition

在Mary Whelan博士的指导下，Marget Neverett女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将继续对在挖掘Gast Farm遗址期间收集的丰富动物材料进行分析，Gast Farm遗址位于爱荷华州东南部密西西比河边缘的冲积扇上。该遗址进行了四个季节的田野调查，发现了两个截然不同的占领时期，都可以追溯到伍德兰时期。从早期的哈瓦那阶段向后期织造阶段的转变大约发生在2000年前。哈瓦那和韦弗村庄的遗迹在空间上都被发现了。这些遗址产生了丰富的动物和其他文化遗迹，在她的NSF资助的研究中，内弗莱特将专注于前者。她将前往威斯康星州的拉克罗斯和伊利诺伊州的斯普林菲尔德，检查比较收藏品，这将有助于详细鉴定加斯特村的动物遗骸。有了收集的数据，她将重建生存模式，并确定在每个时间段如何获得和分配食物。加斯特村遗址是中西部霍普韦尔建筑群的一部分。霍普韦尔之所以让考古学家着迷，部分原因是霍普韦尔人建造的大土堆和他们获得的外来贸易物品为北美最早的复杂、高度组织的社会之一提供了证据。同样令人感兴趣的是霍普韦尔人的衰落，因为在相对较短的时间内，社会组织恢复到不那么复杂的水平。没有建造新的土方工程，异国贸易项目变得稀少。考古学家推测了为什么会发生这种情况，并援引了环境变化等一系列原因。Neverett女士将通过审查过渡双方村庄内的社会关系来解决这个问题，动物遗骸提供了一种方便的方法。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将提供许多考古学家感兴趣的数据。它将增加我们对复杂社会如何产生和衰落的理解，并有助于培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Whelan Under the direction of Dr. Mary Whelan, Ms. Margot Neverett will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will continue her analysis of abundant faunal material collected during the excavation of the Gast Farm site which is located on an alluvial fan at the edge of the Mississippi River in southeastern Iowa. Four seasons of fieldwork have been conducted at the site and these reveal two distinct periods of occupation both dating to the Woodland period. The shift from the earlier Havana to later Weaver phases took place approximately 2,000 years ago. Spatially discrete remains of both Havana and Weaver villages have been discovered. The sites have yielded abundant faunal as well as other cultural remains and in her NSF supported research Ms. Neverett will focus on the former. She will travel to La Crosse Wisconsin and Springfield Illinois to examine comparative collections which will permit detailed identification of the Gast Village faunal remains. With the data collected she will then reconstruct subsistence patterns and determine how food was obtained and distributed in each time period. The Gast Village Site forms part of the Midwestern Hopewell complex. Hopewell has fascinated archaeologists in part because the large mounds which Hopewell people constructed and the exotic trade objects they obtained provide evidence for one of the earliest complex highly-organized societies in North America. Of equal interest is the decline of the Hopewell peoples because over a relatively short period of time social organization reverted to a less complex level. No new earthworks were constructed and exotic trade items became rare. Archaeologists have speculated on why this happened and have invoked a number of causes such as environmental change. Ms. Neverett will approach this question through an examination of social relations within villages on each side of the transition and faunal remains provide a convenient approach. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will increase our understanding of how complex societies arise and decline, and assist in the training of a promising young scientist.