Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Ecology of Early Farming: A Mogollon Case Study

在玛格丽特·C·纳尔逊博士的监督下，史蒂夫·斯旺森将分析考古、环境和基于卫星的数据，以回答有关美国西南部农业发展期间人类对环境影响的问题。在新墨西哥州西部和亚利桑那州东部的莫高隆边缘地区，土著群体在公元200年至公元1000年之间向农业过渡，标志着人与环境关系的变化。虽然人们常常认为，采用农业很快就会导致封建主义和村庄的形成，但在莫高隆地区，在采用农业之后的数百年里，早期的农业定居点实际上仍然很小，居民一直在流动。这些早期的农业遗址数百年来一再被占领和废弃，到公元1000年只有少数几个发展成农业村庄。在美国西南部，在向农业转型期间的早期农业尝试为这些长期的人类-环境动态提供了丰富的数据库。通过用最新的基于卫星的环境数据补充考古数据，这项研究将探索环境弹性、土地利用的环境影响和村庄形成的相互关联的过程。考古记录可以为从狩猎和采集到耕作的转变以及干旱景观中耕作策略的生态提供重要的见解。在Mogollon地区，有一些遗址跨越了800年向农业的过渡。在这些地点中的每一个，都有一系列不同的职业，每种职业一次只有几栋房子。通过检查不同年代房屋中的花粉和烧毁的植物遗骸，人们可以建立这些地点的环境历史，记录植被干扰(如砍伐森林)以及随着时间的推移植被恢复。结合现代植被群落的卫星数据，可以评估可能影响种植业和农业发展的环境因素。首先，早期农业对环境的影响是否影响了农民在一个地方长期成功生活的能力？其次，景观上的一些地方是不是天生就更能抵抗环境退化，这是我们看到农业村庄发展的地方吗？最后，气候在影响早期农业聚落的位置和持久性方面扮演了什么角色？从这项研究中获得的见解不仅对社会科学家有用：它们对为社会面临的现代环境问题制定解决方案具有更广泛的影响。在人类土地利用做法对环境的影响正在达到对生活质量的严重全球威胁的时候，必须认识到，针对当前环境危机的拟议解决方案必须解决社会文化因素和长期可持续性问题，否则这些解决方案将不会成功。这项研究特别适用于人口或环境背景相似的地区，如移徙人口或流动人口，或世界干旱地区。通过研究长期数据集，这项研究可以为全球干旱环境下流动土地利用做法的可持续性问题提供科学信息。鉴于世界各地最近和正在发生的许多干旱环境中流离失所人口的情况，这类信息是及时的。

Under the supervision of Dr. Margaret C. Nelson, Steve Swanson will analyze archaeological, environmental, and satellite-based data to answer questions about human impacts on the environment during the development of agriculture in the Southwestern U.S. In the Mogollon Rim area of western New Mexico and eastern Arizona, native groups made the transition to agriculture between 200 A.D. and 1000 A.D., marking a change in the relationship between people and their environment. While it is often assumed that the adoption of agriculture rapidly leads to sedentism and village formation, in the Mogollon region the early farming settlements actually remained small and residents mobile, for hundreds of years after the adoption of agriculture. These early agricultural sites were repeatedly occupied and abandoned for hundreds of years, and only a few developed into agricultural villages by AD 1000. In the US Southwest, early attempts at farming during the transition to agriculture provide a rich database on these long-term human-environment dynamics. By supplementing the archaeological data with recent satellite-based environmental data, this research will explore the inter-related processes of environmental resilience, environmental impact of land use, and of village formation.The archaeological record can provide critical insights into the transition from hunting and gathering to farming, as well as the ecology of farming strategies in an arid landscape. In the Mogollon area there are sites that span the 800-year transition to agriculture. At each of these sites, there is a series of different occupations, each with only a few houses at a time. By examining pollen and burned plant remains in houses of different ages, one can develop an environmental history for the sites, documenting vegetation disturbance (such as deforestation) as well as vegetation recovery over time. Combining this with satellite-based data on modern vegetation communities permits an assessment of the environmental factors that might influence the development of sedentism and agriculture. First, did the environmental impacts of early agriculture influence the ability of farmers to successfully live in a single place for long periods of time? Second, are some places on the landscape inherently more resistant to environmental degradation, and is that where we see the development of farming villages? Finally, what role does climate play in influencing the location and persistence of early farming settlements?Insights gained from this research are not only useful for social scientists: they have broader implications for developing solutions to modern environmental problems facing society. At a time when the environmental impacts of human land use practices are reaching the level of a critical, global-scale danger to quality of life, it is important to recognize that proposed solutions to current environmental crises must address sociocultural factors as well as issues of long-term sustainability, or they will be unsuccessful. This research is especially applicable to regions with a similar demographic or environmental context, such as for migrant or mobile populations, or in arid regions of the world. By examining a long-term dataset, this study can contribute scientific information to the problem of the sustainability of mobile land use practices in arid environments across the globe. Information of this sort is timely given the numerous recent and ongoing instances of displaced populations in arid environments worldwide.