Zooarchaeological Study of Pan-Mediterranean Trends in Paleolithic Diet, Predator-Prey Dynamics & Ecology

地中海形成了非洲、欧洲和亚洲三大大陆的枢纽，因此在人类起源、人口扩张和文化变迁的讨论中占有突出地位。地中海盆地由于其独特的生态环境，为这类研究提供了一个重要的实验室。随着时间的推移，来自邻近的非洲-阿拉伯、伊朗-图拉尼亚和本蒂克生物地理区域的物种定期入侵，丰富了许多特有的分类群。人类资源集约化最早的证据出现在晚更新世的盆地东端。斯泰纳博士的研究由美国国家科学基金会资助，研究了从40多万年前到8000年前，地中海盆地四个不同的生态地理象限中人类生存和动物群落结构的变化。该项目主要是一项动物考古研究，但它包括对关键有蹄类分类群的稳定碳、氧和氮同位素分析，以跟踪植被结构、湿度和温度随空间和时间的总体变化。拟议的研究在更大的时空尺度上提出了关于地中海盆地旧石器时代生存和社会的问题，而不是以前可以解决的问题。争论的焦点是该地区不同地区人类掠食性生态位关键转变的地理和时间顺序，特别是在猎物年龄选择、饮食宽度和胴体加工强度方面。如果猎人捕获的猎物种类的变化不能用动物群落结构的气候驱动变化来解释，那么它可能表明人类掠食性生态位的变化。该研究利用既定的猎物分类标准，对地中海地区和不同时期的古动物的猎物种类丰度和关联进行了比较。捕食者-猎物模拟模型为研究狩猎压力和可持续性提供了具体的期望，这些压力和可持续性可能与人口密度的变化有关。气候驱动的动物群落重组将通过从牙釉质碳酸盐和骨胶原中获得的独立稳定同位素数据，以及从生长缓慢的小动物和有蹄类动物种群结构的年龄/尺寸扭曲来评估。关于人类生存进化最具启发性的是“生态位边界转移”以及这些转移如何在时间上聚集。例如，先前的研究表明，由黄金年龄主导的死亡率模式定义的大型狩猎生态位的发展可以追溯到旧石器时代中期或更早的时期。更难以解释的是后来人类在营养水平上的下降。对任何动物考古项目来说，关注肉类开采显然都是必要的，但这样做的原因不止于此。肉类是自然界中为数不多的完全蛋白质来源之一，它的稀缺性使人们对大包装的肉类更感兴趣。大型动物偶尔会出现，尽管共享可以帮助弥补供应的不平衡。然而，最佳的肉类摄取率是小而有规律的剂量，在某些情况下，小的野味可以代表可靠、持续的来源。任何提高关键营养的可预测性的生存行为——比如增加营养产量和/或更有效地收获有弹性的（非常多产的）小游戏——都可以提高儿童存活率，从而在不改变出生率的情况下增加人口。在世界许多地区，人类在晚更新世生态系统上的“足迹”难以否认，但同样难以将其与独立的古环境变化区分开来。区分这些影响只能通过仔细控制关键变量来实现。为此，在地中海盆地的四个研究区域中，地理保持不变，以便理解旧石器时代游戏使用的变化。该项目回应了独特的机会，以弥合每个地中海考古系列的重大差距，并了解那里的生存变化的原因。这项研究将动物考古学和稳定同位素数据整合在一起的规模是前所未有的，它将为研究旧石器时代人类饮食变化的学者和最终被驯化的野生物种提供有价值的参考点。研究结果与人类人口统计学、掠食性生态位和动物群落变化之间关系的全球性问题有关。本研究针对的新组合也将大大提高现有大型数据集的价值，并有助于阐明更新世后期人口快速增长的时间和地理中心。迄今为止，关于人类历史的大多数资料是通过比较现代人类遗传多样性获得的，总的来说，这些资料表明有几个人口脉动起源于西亚和/或非洲。在这些研究中，时间是最难控制的变量，因为从基因突变率推断出的生物钟是出了名的不准确。相比之下，动物考古记录证明的人类人口脉动可以通过辐射测量技术和地理位置比较来确定年代。该研究项目促进了四个东道国的国际合作，斯泰纳和学生将直接与当地考古学家和其他科学家合作。这笔拨款的很大一部分将用于资助跨学科科学背景下具有成本效益的研究生研究。这项研究还提出了一个更大的需求，即采用一种具有进化时间深度的综合方法来记录人类在生态系统中的长期地位，这是由美国国家科学基金会资助的圣菲研究所在2003年5月召开的题为“自然和人类系统耦合的鲁棒性”的会议上主持的科学家们最近强调的一个请求。

The Mediterranean Sea forms of the hub of three great continental masses, Africa, Europe, and Asia, and thus figures prominently in discussions of human origins, population expansions, and culture change. The Mediterranean Basin provides a crucial laboratory for this kind of research on account of its unique ecology, with many endemic taxa enriched over time by periodic incursions of species from adjacent Afro-Arabian, Irano-Turanian, and Pontic biogeographic regions. Some of the earliest evidence for resource intensification among humans occurs in the eastern end of the basin during the Late Pleistocene. Dr. Stiner's NSF-funded research examines variation in human subsistence and animal community structure across the Mediterranean Basin from 400,000+ to 8,000 years ago in four distinct ecogeographic quadrants. The project is principally a zooarchaeological study, but it includes stable carbon, oxygen and nitrogen isotope analyses of key ungulate taxa in order to track gross variation in vegetation structure, humidity, and temperature through space and time. The proposed research raises questions about Paleolithic subsistence and society in the Mediterranean Basin at larger temporal and spatial scales than could be addressed previously. At issue are the geography and chronology of key transitions in human predatory niches across distinct areas of the region, particularly in terms of prey age selection, dietary breadth, and the intensity of carcass processing efforts. If variation in the prey species hunted by hunters cannot be explained by climate-driving changes in animal community structure, it likely indicates changes in human predatory niche. The research undertakes comparisons of prey species abundance and associations in archaeofaunas across Mediterranean regions and through time, using established criteria for categorizing prey. Predator-prey simulation modeling provides specific expectations in the investigation of hunting pressure and sustainability that can be related changes in human population densities. Climate-driven restructuring of animal communities will be evaluated from independent stable isotope data obtained from tooth enamel carbonate and bone collagen, and from age/size distortion in the population structures of slow-growing small animals and ungulates. Most enlightening with respect to human subsistence evolution are "niche boundary shifts" and how these transitions cluster in time. Prior research has shown, for example, that the development of the large game hunting niche as defined by prime-age-dominant mortality patterns dates to the onset of the Middle Paleolithic period or before. Far more difficult to explain are the downward shifts in trophic level that characterized later humans. The focus on meat exploitation is an obvious necessity for any zooarchaeological project, but there is more reason for it than just this. Meat is one of the very few sources of complete protein in nature, and its rarity sharpens humans' interest in obtaining it in large packages. Large animals are available sporadically, although sharing can help to remedy the unevenness in the supply. The optimal rate of meat consumption is in small but regular doses, however, and small game can represent reliable, continuous sources in some circumstances. Any subsistence behaviors that enhance the predictability of critical nutrients-such as increasing the nutritional yield and/or more efficient harvesting of resilient (very productive) small game-can improve childhood survivorship and thereby swell a population without a change in birthrate. The human "footprint" on Late Pleistocene ecosystems is difficult to deny in many world regions yet it has been equally difficult to separate from independent paleoenvironmental changes. Distinguishing these effects can only be accomplished through careful control of the key variables. Towards this end, geography is held constant in four study areas of the Mediterranean Basin in order to make sense of variation in Paleolithic game use. The project responds to unique opportunities to close significant gaps in each Mediterranean archaeofaunal series and to understand the causes of subsistence change there. The scale at which this research integrates zooarchaeological and stable isotope data has never before been attempted and will provide valuable reference points for scholars of human dietary change in the Paleolithic and for wild species that eventually came under domestication. The outcomes of the research are relevant to global questions about the relation between human demography, predatory niche, and animal community changes. The new assemblages targeted by this study will also greatly enhance the value of existing large data sets and help clarify the timing and geographic centers of rapid population growth during the later Pleistocene. To date, most information on human population history has been obtained from comparisons of modern human genetic diversity, which on the whole suggest several demographic pulses originating from western Asia and/or Africa. Time is the most difficult variable to control in these studies, because the biological clocks inferred from gene mutation rates are notoriously inaccurate. By contrast, human demographic pulses evidenced by the zooarchaeological record can be dated by radiometric techniques and their geographic positions compared. The research program fosters international collaboration in four host countries, where Stiner and students will work directly with local archaeologists and other scientists. A significant proportion of this grant will fund cost-effective graduate student research in the context of cross-disciplinary science. The research also addresses a larger need for integrative approaches with an evolutionary time depth for documenting the long-term place of people in ecosystems, a plea underscored recently by the scientists hosted by the NSF-funded Santa Fe Institute conference in May 2003 on "The Robustness of Coupled Natural and Human Systems".