Late Holocene Human Impacts on Pacific Coast Bird Populations: Evidence from the Emeryville Shellmound Avifauna

全新世晚期人类对太平洋沿岸鸟类种群的影响：来自埃默里维尔贝壳鸟类区系的证据

• 批准号: 9707997
• 负责人: Jack Broughton
• 金额: $ 5.56万
• 依托单位: University of Utah
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-07-01 至 2000-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9707997&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Late; Holocene; Human; Impacts; Pacific

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Jack Broughton will analyze faunal remains recovered from archaeological excavation at the Emeryville Shellmound located the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. This deeply stratified site was first occupied ca. 2,600 years ago and it records human habitation and use of local resources over a roughly 2,000 year period. Prehistoric Native Americans lived at the site and the faunal remains they discarded provide detailed insight into their hunting and subsistence practices. Such materials are both abundant and extremely well preserved. In his doctoral dissertation work, also funded by NSF, Dr. Broughton analyzed fish and mammalian faunas. In this current project he will extend his study to avian materials. From prior work it is clear that people hunted birds extensively and large numbers of both individuals and species are present in the archaeological collections. Dr. Broughton will identify materials to a species level. He will also develop a method to determine the age at which cormorants were harvested and thus be able to examine the age structure of the population. Given the stratified nature of the site it will be possible to determine how harvesting practices changed over time. Both archaeologists and paeloecologists wish to understand the effect of Native American hunter-gatherers on the prey they hunted. Paleoecologists wish to know whether the environment which the first colonists observed was `natural` and essentially unaffected by humans or whether, in fact, hunter and gatherers at relatively low population densities had a significant impact. Archaeologists want to determine whether such populations were affected by human-induced resource scarcities and thus needed to change their subsistence strategies over time. Dr. Broughton's research should provide important insight into this question. Through the use of models derived from optimum foraging theory one can predict how species composition and age structure change when bird populations are stressed and their numbers decrease. Thus, this analysis will provide direct insight on human impact on the environment and, in turn, the effect this change had on subsequent human behavior.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，杰克布劳顿博士将分析从位于旧金山弗朗西斯科湾海岸线的埃默里维尔贝壳丘考古发掘中发现的动物群遗骸。 这一深层次的网站首先被占领约。它记录了大约2,000年来人类的居住和当地资源的使用。史前美洲原住民生活在这里，他们丢弃的动物遗骸提供了他们狩猎和生存方式的详细信息。这些材料既丰富又保存得非常好。布劳顿博士的博士论文也是由美国国家科学基金会资助的，他分析了鱼类和哺乳动物群。在目前的项目中，他将把他的研究扩展到鸟类材料。从先前的工作可以清楚地看出，人们广泛地猎杀鸟类，大量的个体和物种都出现在考古收藏中。布劳顿博士将在物种水平上鉴定材料。他还将开发一种方法来确定鸬鹚被捕获的年龄，从而能够检查种群的年龄结构。鉴于该地点的分层性质，将有可能确定采伐做法如何随着时间的推移而变化。 考古学家和古生物生态学家都希望了解美洲原住民狩猎采集者对他们狩猎的猎物的影响。古生态学家希望知道，第一批殖民者所观察到的环境是否是“自然的”，基本上不受人类的影响，或者，事实上，在相对较低的人口密度下，狩猎者和采集者是否产生了重大影响。考古学家希望确定这些人口是否受到人类引起的资源稀缺的影响，因此需要随着时间的推移改变他们的生存策略。布劳顿博士的研究应该为这个问题提供重要的见解。通过使用最优觅食理论的模型，可以预测当鸟类种群受到压力和数量减少时，物种组成和年龄结构的变化。因此，这种分析将提供对人类对环境的影响的直接洞察，反过来，这种变化对随后的人类行为的影响。