An Isotopic Dietary Reconstruction of Texas Hunter-Gatherers

在国家科学基金会的支持下，罗伯特·哈德博士和杰弗里·弗朗西斯先生将协调对在大约150,000平方米的面积内挖掘出的一大系列史前人类骨骼进行化学分析。得克萨斯州沿海平原的一公里区域。他们的目标是首先利用这些数据重建饮食，然后确定生存战略和定居模式之间的关系。正如研究人员指出的那样，该地区的史前是高度异常的。在世界上大多数地区，狩猎和采集的人们以小规模的流动群体生活，并将死者埋葬在个别地点，想必是因为他们的领土太大，无法迅速将新死亡的人运送到中心地点。当引进家养动植物后，人口规模增加，定居的村庄出现，成群的人开始将死者埋葬在中心地点。然而，从大约4000年前开始，在德克萨斯州的这个地区，美洲原住民流动猎人和采集者开始沿着主要的排水沟和海湾使用有组织的墓地。墓地的使用一直延续到史前时期的最后一个千年。墓地是矛盾的，因为它们的出现意味着人口增加，流动性减少，聚集性和领土面积增加。尽管有这些变化，但考古证据表明，这是一种带状水平的、流动的狩猎和采集适应。在史前，驯化的植物没有被使用，尽管邻近地区存在农业经济，气候本来可以支持旱作农业。这种模式与北美东南部和西南部地区形成鲜明对比，那里的农业很快就被采用了。已经提出了几种理论来解释这一现象，他们都认为当地丰富的野生食物资源可以减少流动性和领土大小。然而，它们在可能涉及的食物组合方面存在差异，一些侧重于鱼和其他海洋资源，另一些侧重于丰富的野生植物，如山核桃。由于骨骼在人的一生中都是重塑的，骨骼中的碳和氮来自饮食来源，骨的化学成分间接反映了所消费的食物类型。研究人员将分析从该地区不同分区提取的一大系列骨骼的碳和氮同位素值。他们还将检查锶同位素，因为它们反映了人一生中的运动。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，并为了解美国史前一个相对未知的方面提供新的线索。它还将提供对在相对不强制的社会中塑造社会组织的过程的洞察。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Robert Hard and Mr. Jeffrey Francis will coordinate the chemical analysis of a large series of prehistoric human skeletons excavated in a ca. 150,000 sq. km area of the coastal plain of Texas. Their goal is to use these data first to reconstruct diet and then to determine the relationship between subsistence strategy and settlement pattern. As the researchers note, the prehistory of the region is highly anomalous. In most portions of the world, hunting and gathering peoples lived in small mobile groups and buried their dead in individual locations, presumably because their territories were so large that they could not quickly transport the newly deceased to a central location. When domestic plants and animals were introduced, population size increased, sedentary villages emerged and groups began to bury their dead in central locations. In this region of Texas however beginning about 4000 years ago organized cemeteries began to be utilized along the major drainages and bays by native American mobile hunters and gatherers. Cemetery use continued through the last millennium of the prehistoric period. The cemeteries are paradoxical as their emergence suggests increased population, reduced mobility, aggregation and increased territoriality. Despite these changes however archaeological evidence indicates a band-level, mobile hunting and gathering adaptation. Prehistorically, domesticated plants were not used despite the existence of farming economies in adjacent areas and a climate which would have supported dry-farming. This pattern is in contrast to the North American Southeast and Southwest where agriculture was quickly adopted. Several theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon and they share a belief that rich local wild food resources allowed for reduced mobility and territory size. They differ however in just what mix of foods might be involved, some focusing on fish and other marine resources, and others on abundant wild plants such as pecans. Because bone is remodeled over the human lifetime and the carbon and nitrogen in bone derives from dietary sources, bone chemical composition indirectly reflects the type of foods consumed. The researchers will analyze carbon and nitrogen isotope values from a large series of skeletons drawn from different subregions within the area. They will also examine strontium isotopes because these reflect individual movement over a lifetime.This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and shed new light on a relatively unknown aspect of United States prehistory. It will also provide insight into the processes which shape social organization in relatively uncompelled societies.