Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Investigating the Development of Agriculture in the Salta Puna, Northwestern Argentina

在Mark Aldenderfer博士的指导下，Claudia U. Rumold将为她的博士论文收集数据，该论文将研究阿根廷西北部安第斯山脉的农业采用情况。她将参与位于圣安东尼奥德洛斯科布雷斯河谷的拉马达斯和马坦西利亚斯2号两个遗址的考古调查。这些遗址的年代约为公元前5240年至2040年，跨越了该地区农业发展的时期，目前的证据表明，它们将提供有关这一过程的数据。这两个遗址都包含了种植、加工或食用植物的证据（例如，锄头、磨石、植物遗骸）。值得注意的是，早在斋月的遗址在安第斯山脉中南部是罕见的，这可能为农业采用的第一阶段提供了关键的见解。在过去的一万年里，农业在世界各地不同环境下的许多社会中独立出现。农业经济的广泛采用已经并将继续产生深远的影响——有助于增加社会政治复杂性、定居化、人口快速增长、城市化和大规模的人类环境改造。鉴于它的关键作用，考古学家希望了解农业的起源和发展——它是如何以及为什么在全球如此成功地传播的。要弄清从狩猎采集向农耕转变背后的基本变量，需要仔细比较案例研究。阿根廷西北部拥有许多与农业出现密切相关的变量（例如，本地植物和动物的驯化以及陶器和定居乡村生活的出现）。因此，Rumold在这里的研究将为比较过程提供关键的新数据。将进行四项分析，目的是描述有关地点农业的出现。磨石和陶瓷的使用磨损分析将阐明植物加工技术的性质和强度。检查烧焦的植物残骸将阐明种子植物的用途。根和块茎（如马铃薯）——安第斯山脉史前驯化的最重要的经济植物——通常不会以烧焦的形式保存下来；因此，将对淀粉粒进行分析，以阐明其经济作用。由于这项技术对考古学来说相对较新，鲁莫德的研究将有助于扩大其在南美高地的经验基础。在理论层面上，关于根和块茎使用的数据对于纠正目前主要涉及种子植物的农业起源理论中的偏见至关重要。

Under the direction of Dr. Mark Aldenderfer, Claudia U. Rumold will collect data for her doctoral dissertation which will examine the adoption of agriculture in the high Andes of northwestern Argentina. She will participate in the archaeological investigation of two sites, Ramadas and Matansillas 2, located in the San Antonio de los Cobres River Valley. The sites, dating from circa 5240 to 2040 BP, span the period in which agriculture developed in this region and current evidence indicates that they will provide data regarding this process. Both sites contain evidence for the cultivation, processing, or consumption of plants (e.g., hoes, grinding stones, plant remains). Significantly, sites as early as Ramadas are rare in the south-central Andes and may provide key insights into the first stages of agricultural adoption. Within the last ten thousand years, agriculture appeared independently among many societies inhabiting distinct environmental settings around the world. The widespread adoption of an agrarian economy had and continues to have a far-reaching impact - contributing to increasing sociopolitical complexity, sedentarization, rapid population growth, urbanism, and large-scale human transformation of the environment. In view of its pivotal role, archaeologists wish to understand agriculture's origins and development - how and why it diffused so successfully throughout the globe. Clarification of the fundamental variables underlying the shift from hunting-gathering to farming hinges on careful comparison of case studies. Northwestern Argentina possesses many of the variables closely linked with the appearance of agriculture (e.g., the domestication of autochthonous plants and animals and the appearance of pottery and settled village life). Rumold's research here will therefore provide new data critical to the comparative process. Four analyses will be carried out with the aim of characterizing the emergence of farming at the sites in question. Grinding stone and ceramic use-wear analysis will elucidate the nature and intensity of plant processing techniques. Examination of charred plant remains will illuminate the use of seed plants. Roots and tubers (e.g., potato) - the most important economic plants domesticated prehistorically in the Andes - do not often preserve in charred form; therefore, starch grain analysis will be conducted in order to clarify their economic role. As this technique is relatively new to archaeology, Rumold's research will help to expand its empirical base in highland South America. On a theoretical level, data regarding the use of roots and tubers will be essential to correcting the present bias in theories of agricultural origins, which primarily concern seed plants.