Demise of the Shell Mound Archaic: Ecological Circumstances Attending Regional Abandonment of the Middle Savannah at 3500 BP

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，肯尼斯·e·萨萨曼博士和他的同事将调查公元前第四个千年的斯托林文化遗弃萨凡纳河谷中部（乔治亚州和南卡罗来纳州）的情况。作为贝壳丘古文明的一部分，斯托林斯文化发展了几个世纪，包括固定的河流定居点，密集的，以水生为基础的自给经济，以及许多技术创新，包括北美的第一个陶器。大约3500年前，主要的居住地被遗弃，人们分散到邻近的高地上，恢复了流动的生活方式。对采集者的考古研究表明，当地资源的丰富如何导致社会政治的复杂性，但相对于使其成为可能的生态条件，我们对这种制度的可持续性知之甚少。拟议的工作旨在确定日益密集的土地使用对当地环境的影响，以及这种影响在多大程度上促成了区域放弃。在过去的十年中，在萨凡纳中部地区的四个斯托林斯人居住地点进行的挖掘工作已经产生了大量的古生态和人工数据，涵盖了当地斯托林斯社区的兴起、繁盛和消亡。对这些遗址的动植物遗骸、木炭、陆地蜗牛和物质文化的分析旨在验证以下五个假设：(1)斯托林斯史前时期的自给经济多样化；(2)高阶资源收益递减导致多元化；(3)由于斯托林斯社区的过度开发，高级资源的收益递减；(4)对当地环境的永久利用导致过度开发；(5)技术创新加剧而不是缓解了经济压力。所有的分析都将由研究生研究助理在考古植物学、动物考古学、生态学和史前技术方面的教师顾问的监督下进行。拟议工作的相关性是多方面的。史泰林史前史是世界上为数不多的社会政治复杂性不断增加的历史序列被截断的例子之一。尽管考古学家们把大量的注意力放在了从觅食到农耕的转变，以及由此产生的国家的兴起上，但几乎没有人进行过研究，来检验日益强化的觅食经济和社会“进化”的失败。一个相关的问题是人类生态观念的改变。长期以来，民族志上的觅食者一直被认为是进化的理想，他们的流动性、食物分享和简单的技术模式都是对前农业环境的敏锐适应。越来越多的证据表明，一些古代造假者所从事的土地利用实践，不可逆转地改变了整个生态系统和历史轨迹。这反过来又与现代环境恢复政策有关。正如在人种学中没有“原始的”采集者来模拟前西方社会一样，在人类历史的过程中也没有“原始的”生态系统来模拟环境恢复的努力。对生态系统和文化多样性的准确描述需要深刻的历史背景，而斯托林斯的考古记录提供了一个无与伦比的机会，可以汇集详细的生态历史，用于人类学、保护和环境政策的比较使用。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Kenneth E. Sassaman and colleagues will investigate the circumstances surrounding abandonment of the middle Savannah River valley (Georgia and South Carolina) by the fourth millennium BC Stallings Culture. As part of the Shell Mound Archaic, Stallings Culture developed over several centuries to include stationary riverine settlements, an intensive, aquatic-based subsistence economy, and numerous technological innovations, including the first pottery in the North America. Around 3500 years ago, major habitation sites were abandoned as groups dispersed into the adjacent uplands to resume a mobile lifestyle. Archaeological research on foragers shows how local resource abundance contributes to sociopolitical complexity, but we know comparatively little about the sustainability of such institutions relative to the ecological conditions that enabled them. The proposed work is designed to ascertain the local environmental impacts attending increasingly intensive land-use and the extent to which such impacts contributed to regional abandonment. Over the past decade, excavations at four Stallings habitation sites in the middle Savannah region have yielded a large inventory of paleoecological and artifactual data spanning the rise, florescence, and demise of local Stallings communities. Analyses of the animal and plant remains, wood charcoal, land snails, and material culture from these sites are designed to test five hypotheses: (1) subsistence economies over the course of Stallings prehistory diversified; (2) diversification resulted from diminishing returns on high-ranking resources; (3) diminishing returns on high-ranking resources resulted from overexploitation by Stallings communities; (4) overexploitation resulted from permanent use of local environments; (5) technological innovations contributed to, rather than alleviated, economic stress. All analyses will be conducted by graduate research assistants under the supervision of faculty consultants in archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, malecology, and prehistoric technology. The relevance of the proposed work is manifold. Stallings prehistory represents one of the few cases worldwide of a truncated historical sequence of increasing sociopolitical complexity. Whereas archaeologists have devoted much attention to the transition from foraging to farming, and thence the rise of the state, virtually no studies have been conducted to examine the failure of increasingly intensified forager economies and societies to "evolve." A related issue is changing perceptions of human ecology. Ethnographic foragers have long been conscripted as evolutionary ideals whose patterns of mobility, food-sharing, and simple technology were a keen adaptation to preagricultural conditions. A growing body of evidence shows that some ancient forgers engaged in land-use practices that irrevocably changed entire ecosystems and historical trajectories. This, in turn, bears relevance on modern environmental restoration policy. Just as there are arguably no "pristine" foragers in the ethnographic present to model pre-Western society, there are arguably no "pristine" ecosystems over the course of human history for which to model environmental restoration efforts. Accurate portrayal of both ecosystem and cultural diversity requires deep historical context, and the Stallings archaeological record offers an unparalleled opportunity to assemble a detailed ecological history for comparative uses in anthropology, conservation, and environmental policy.