Evolution of a Complex Hunter-Gatherer Community in Southern British Columbia: The Bridge River Project

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，威廉·C.普伦蒂斯和他的同事们将在桥河遗址进行两个考古季节的实地研究，桥河遗址是一个位于不列颠哥伦比亚省中南部弗雷泽峡谷中部的大型房屋坑村。像附近的Keatley Creek遗址一样，Bridge River提供了广泛的（70个房屋坑）和保存完好的考古沉积物，代表了复杂的狩猎采集进化和村庄组织的全球重要记录。 最重要的是，这个网站提供了直接的证据，记录社会经济平等主义和排名狩猎采集社会之间的过渡。Prentiss博士将指导多学科研究，这些研究将依靠地球物理调查，表面轮廓测绘，考古发掘，放射性碳测年以及动物考古学和古民族植物学分析来研究这一进化过程。 地球物理研究将使用各种仪器（包括磁力测量、电导率、电阻率和探地雷达），以绘制整个村庄的地下特征图。 激光经纬仪测绘将提供详细的地表等高线图。 这些研究将允许对房屋地板、壁炉和烘烤坑、储存结构以及可能的村庄栅栏的可变性进行广泛的评估。 考古试掘将放在有烹饪或取暖特征的环境中，目的是收集样品，以便对所有房屋地板进行放射性碳年代测定，并收集外部特征样品。 特征功能，并通过代理，在家庭生活和技术行为的变化将通过文物和动物群和花卉遗骸的详细研究进行检查。 普伦蒂斯博士和他的同事们将重点关注几个关键问题：1。桥河村是什么时候成为一个聚合社区的？2.社会经济不平等是什么时候出现的？3. 这一过程的生态、技术和人口相关性是什么？ 4.我们是否可以将这种性质的社会进化理解为在区域最佳资源条件下发生的过程，或者它是由关键资源的获得减少导致更大的竞争来控制最具生产力的觅食景观。 这项研究将提供实质性的知识价值的影响，解决社会经济不平等的出现在聚集的狩猎采集社区。 它问不平等是否是资源丰富时有抱负的精英的利己行为的结果，或者它是否是与高人口和资源获取能力下降相关的文化进化过程的一个可能结果。 该项目将在若干层面产生广泛影响。 它将直接将土著社区纳入研究进程，从而加强考古学家与美洲土著人/第一民族的关系。 它将为大学生和公众提供科学教育机会。它将提供洞察人类行为和生态变化之间的关系在全球变暖的早期阶段。 预计这最终将对更广泛区域内的人力、文化和自然资源管理政策和做法产生影响。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. William C. Prentiss and his colleagues will conduct two field seasons of archaeological research at the Bridge River site, a large housepit village located in the Middle Fraser Canyon of south-central British Columbia. Like the nearby Keatley Creek site, Bridge River offers extensive (70 housepits) and well-preserved archaeological deposits representing a globally significant record of complex hunter-gatherer evolution and village organization. Most importantly, this site provides direct evidence for documenting transitions between socio-economically egalitarian and ranked hunter-gatherer societies. Dr. Prentiss will direct multidisciplinary research that will examine this evolutionary process relying upon geophysical investigations, surface contour mapping, archaeological excavation, radiocarbon dating, and zooarchaeological and paleoethnobotanical analyses. Geophysical research will employ a wide range of instruments (including magnetometry, conductivity, resistivity, and ground-penetrating radar) in order to produce a sub-surface map of features across the village. Laser-transit mapping will provide a detailed surface contour map. These studies will permit a broad assessment of variability in house-floors, hearths and roasting pits, storage structures, and possibly a village palisade. Archaeological test excavations will be placed in contexts indicative of cooking or heating features with the goal of collecting samples that will permit radiocarbon dating of all house floors and a sample of external features. Feature function, and, by proxy, variation in household subsistence and technological behavior will be examined through detailed studies of artifacts and faunal and floral remains. Dr. Prentiss and his colleagues will focus on several key questions: 1. When did the Bridge River village emerge as an aggregated community? 2. When did socio-economic inequality emerge? 3. What are the ecological, technological, and demographic correlates of this process? 4. Can we understand social evolution of this nature as a process that occurs under regionally optimal resource conditions or is it driven by declining access to key resources making for greater competition to control the most productive foraging landscapes. The research will offer implications of substantial intellectual merit, addressing the emergence of socio-economic inequality in aggregated hunter-gatherer communities. It asks whether inequality is the consequence of self-interested behavior of aspiring elites when resources are abundant or if it is one possible result of a cultural evolutionary process associated with high populations and declining access to resources. The project will result in broad impacts on several levels. It will directly incorporate indigenous communities in the research process thereby enhancing archaeologist and Native American/First Nations relationships. It will offer science educational opportunities to university students and the general public. It will offer insight into relationships between human behavior and ecological change during earlier periods of global warming. This is expected to have eventual impacts on human, cultural, and natural resource management policies and practices within the broader region.