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·普伦蒂斯博士和他的同事们将在布里奇河遗址进行两次实地考古研究。布里奇河遗址是位于不列颠哥伦比亚省中南部弗雷泽峡谷中部的一个大型房屋村庄。与附近的Keatley Creek遗址一样，桥河也有大量（70个房屋）和保存完好的考古沉积物，代表了复杂的狩猎采集者进化和村庄组织的全球重要记录。最重要的是，这个遗址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。潘提斯博士将指导多学科研究，通过地球物理调查、地表等高线测绘、考古发掘、放射性碳测年、动物考古学和古民族植物学分析来检验这一进化过程。地球物理研究将采用广泛的仪器（包括磁力计、电导率、电阻率和探地雷达），以便绘制整个村庄的地下特征图。激光传输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、壁炉和烤炉、储存结构以及可能的村庄栅栏的可变性进行广泛的评估。考古测试挖掘将放置在指示烹饪或加热特征的环境中，目的是收集样本，以便对所有房屋地板和外部特征样本进行放射性碳定年。通过对人工制品、动物和植物遗骸的详细研究，将对家庭生存和技术行为的特征功能和代用变量进行检查。普伦蒂斯博士和他的同事们将重点研究几个关键问题：桥河村是什么时候成为一个聚集的社区的？2. 社会经济不平等是什么时候出现的？3. 这一过程在生态、技术和人口方面的关联是什么？4. 我们是否可以将这种性质的社会进化理解为在区域最优资源条件下发生的过程，或者它是由对关键资源的获取减少导致更大的竞争来控制最具生产力的觅食景观所驱动的？这项研究将提供大量的智力价值，解决在聚集的狩猎-采集社区出现的社会经济不平等问题。它提出的问题是，当资源丰富时，不平等是有抱负的精英自利行为的结果，还是与人口众多和资源获取机会减少相关的文化进化过程的一个可能结果。该项目将在多个层面产生广泛的影响。它将直接将土著社区纳入研究过程，从而加强考古学家和美洲土著/第一民族的关系。它将为大学生和公众提供科学教育的机会。它将提供对早期全球变暖时期人类行为和生态变化之间关系的洞察。预计这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最终影响。

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.