Modeling Mid-Latitude Littoral Hunter-Gatherers: Inter-Disciplinary Investigations at San Elijo Lagoon, Southern California

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，布莱恩·伯德博士和他的同事们将在圣地亚哥以北20英里的圣伊莱霍保护区县公园进行两个季节的考古和古环境研究，该公园是该地区最大、保存最完好的沿海湿地之一。丰富的自然资源包括潮汐通道和泥滩，6个植物群落和种类繁多的脊椎动物、无脊椎动物和鸟类。沉积物取心的试点项目可以重建过去的环境，表明河口沉积物可以追溯到近8000年前。考古研究揭示了该地区丰富的考古遗产，尽管许多位于圣伊莱霍保护区外的遗址已经被城市发展所破坏，但公园内记录的16个史前贝壳堆遗址记录了从8000到900年前几乎每千年的占用。伯德博士的研究目标是在这片湿地中建立一个八千年来环境变化的全面图景，并针对人类定居模式和生存策略的变化进行规划。在项目的第一年，将收集独立的环境数据，并在12个贝壳堆地点进行试验挖掘，以确定占用时间范围，并确定哪些地点可以提供最丰富的生存数据来源。在第二阶段，将在适当地点进行大规模挖掘。将特别强调收集大量有代表性的动物、植物和贝壳遗骸样本，以重建觅食模式。初步数据表明，随着时间的推移，随着海平面的上升，资源丰富的河口逐渐淤塞而变得贫瘠。以前聚集的人口仍然留在该地区，但在这片土地上分布得更稀疏，这使得利用食物的成本更高，也更难以获得。在此背景下，研究小组将充实暂定的考古记录，并利用收集到的数据来检验从最佳觅食理论衍生出来的各种理论。从这个理论基础上，可以作出一些预测，这些预测的中心是最节能的资源利用方法。他们提出了在资源日益减少的情况下，人们如何最有效地在食物斑块之间移动和利用，以及他们的饮食范围如何变化。近年来，考古学家逐渐认识到，资源丰富的沿海地区为狩猎和采集人类提供了一个重要的生存环境，在世界上许多地方的这些地区，出现了相对定居的社会。这项研究将揭示这些沿海居民如何应对经常快速和极端的环境变化以及他们采用的基本策略。该项目将在一个包括14至16名学生的暑期实地学校进行，因此也将发挥宝贵的教育作用。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Brian Byrd and his colleagues will conduct two seasons of archaeological and paleonenvironmental research in the San Elijo Reserve County Park situated 20 miles north of San Diego in one of the regions largest and best preserved coastal wetlands. The rich natural resources include tidal channels and mud flats, six plant communities and a wide range of vertebrates, invertebrates and bird species. A pilot program of sediment coring which permits reconstruction of past environments indicates estuary deposits dating back to almost 8000 years ago. Archeological research has revealed a rich archaeological heritage in this region and although many sites which lie outside the san Elijo Reserve have been destroyed by urban development, sixteen prehistoric shell midden sites recorded within the park document occupation in almost every millennium from almost 8,000 to 900 years ago. The goal of Dr. Byrd's research is to build up a comprehensive picture of environmental change within this wetland over an eight millennium period, and plot against this changing human settlement patterns and subsistence strategies over time. During the first year of the project independent environmental data will be collected and test excavations will be conducted at 12 shell midden sites to refine occupation time ranges and determine which sites can provide the richest sources of subsistence data. In a second phase, large-scale excavation will be conducted at appropriate sites. Special emphasis will be placed on the collection of large representative samples of animal, plant and shell remains to reconstruct foraging patterns. Preliminary data indicates that over time resource rich estuaries gradually became silted up and impoverished as sea level rose. Formerly aggregated human populations remained in the region but spread more thinly over the landscape to make use of foods more costly in effort and more difficult to procure. Against this background the research team will flesh out the tentative archaeological record and use the data collected to test a variety of theories derived from optimum foraging theory. From this theoretical base a number of predictions can be made and these center on the most energy efficient approaches to resource utilization. They suggest how, in the face of decreasing resources, people can most effectively move between and utilize food patches and how the breadth of their diet may change.In recent years archaeologists have come to realize that resource rich coastal regions provided an important niche for hunting and gathering peoples and that in such areas in many parts of the world, relatively sedentary societies emerged. This research will shed new light on how such coastal dwellers responded to often rapid and extreme environmental change and the basic strategies they employed. The project will be conducted in the context of a summer field school which includes 14 to 16 students and thus will also serve a valuable educational function.