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

在国家科学基金会的支持下，威廉·C·普伦蒂斯博士和他的同事们将在布里奇河遗址进行两个实地考古研究，这是一个位于不列颠哥伦比亚省中南部弗雷泽峡谷的大型房屋坑村庄。与附近的Keatley Creek遗址一样，Bridge River拥有广泛的(70个家庭坑)和保存完好的考古沉积物，代表着复杂的狩猎-采集进化和村庄组织的全球重要记录。最重要的是，这个网站为记录社会经济平等主义和等级狩猎-采集社会之间的转变提供了直接证据。普伦蒂斯博士将领导多学科研究，这些研究将依靠地球物理调查、地表等高线绘制、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检验这一进化过程。地球物理研究将使用广泛的仪器(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地物地图。激光经纬仪测绘将提供详细的表面等高线地图。这些研究将允许对房屋地板、壁炉和烘焙炉、仓储结构以及可能的村庄栅栏进行广泛的可变性评估。考古测试挖掘将放在表明烹饪或供暖特征的背景下进行，目的是收集样本，以便能够对所有房屋地板和外部特征进行放射性碳测年。将通过对人工制品和动植物遗迹的详细研究，研究特征功能以及家庭生存和技术行为的变化。Prentiss博士和他的同事们将重点研究几个关键问题：1.Bridge River村庄何时形成一个聚集性社区？2.社会经济不平等是什么时候出现的？3.这一过程的生态、技术和人口统计相关性是什么？4.我们能否将这种性质的社会进化理解为发生在区域最佳资源条件下的过程，还是由于关键资源获取渠道的减少导致了控制最具生产力的觅食景观的竞争加剧。这项研究将提供大量智力价值的影响，解决在聚集的狩猎-采集社区中出现的社会经济不平等问题。它提出的问题是，不平等是有抱负的精英在资源丰富时的自利行为的结果，还是与人口众多和获得资源的机会减少相关的文化进化过程的可能结果之一。该项目将在几个层面产生广泛影响。它将直接将土著社区纳入研究进程，从而加强考古学家和美洲土著人/第一民族之间的关系。它将为大学生和普通民众提供科学教育机会。它将提供对人类行为与全球变暖早期生态变化之间关系的洞察。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.