Dissertation Research: Is There An Altithermal? Holocene Climate and Human Adaptation of the NW Plains

在唐纳德·格雷森博士的指导下，苏珊·休斯女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将研究从木乃伊洞考古遗址发现的动物遗骸，以解决人类对气候变化的反应问题。木乃伊洞位于怀俄明州的北福克河谷，它的8.5米的存款保存了38个不同的职业阶层。一个大型的放射性碳年代测定表明，这些跨越了9,200年的时间，从大约2000年开始。一万年前。因此，它们记录了自上一个冰河时代以来大部分时间的人类行为。其中22层含有动物遗骸，这些遗骸是有目的的人类狩猎和消费以及啮齿动物和其他小型动物在沉积物中挖洞自然死亡的结果。这个动物群样本提供了一个有价值的数据源，可以重建人类行为以及环境变化。许多小型哺乳动物有特定的栖息地要求，它们的存在或不存在提供了对它们一生中气候和植被的了解。动物骨骼中的碳、氧和氮同位素比值也受到环境的影响，并提供有关温度、降水和地被的信息。通过对大量骨头的分析，休斯女士将重建这些变量。她采用最佳觅食理论来预测人类的行为将如何改变对环境变化的反应，她将分析猎物年龄和物种的差异，以确定生存适应如何变化与气候变化。考古数据提供了一个很好的窗口，人类环境的关系，因为它们允许相互作用被跟踪很长一段时间。有了动物遗骸，就有可能重建这两个变量的各个方面，这项研究将使人们更好地了解人类如何在简单的技术水平上适应环境。木乃伊洞穴的数据将引起许多考古学家的兴趣。该项目还将协助培养一名有前途的青年科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Donald Grayson, MS Susan Hughes will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will examine faunal remains recovered from the archaeological site of Mummy Cave to address the question of human response to climatic change. Mummy Cave is situated in the North Fork River Valley in Wyoming and it's 8.5 meters of deposit preserve 38 different occupational strata. A large suite of radiocarbon dates indicate that these span a 9,200 year period, beginning ca. 10,000 years ago. Thus they document human behavior over most of the time since the last ice age. Twenty two of these levels contain faunal remains which result from purposeful human hunting and consumption as well as from natural deaths from rodents and other small animals which burrowed into the deposits. This faunal sample provides a valuable data source which allows both the reconstruction of human behavior as well as environmental change. Many small mammals have specific habitat requirements and their presence or absence provides insight into climate and vegetation during their lifetime. Carbon, oxygen and nitrogen isotopic ratios in animal bone are also influenced by environment and provide information on temperature, precipitation and ground cover. Through analysis of a large series of bones MS. Hughes will reconstruct these variables. She has employed optimum foraging theory to predict how human behavior will change in response to environmental variation and she will analyze differences in prey age and species to determine how subsistence adaptation varies in relation to climatic change.Archaeological data offer an excellent window into human environment relationships because they allow interactions to be traced over long periods of time. With faunal remains it is possible to reconstruct aspects of both variables and this research will provide increased understanding of how humans adapt at a simple level of technology. The Mummy Cave data will be of interest to many archaeologists. This project will also assist in training a promising young scientist.