Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Geospatial Bioarchaeological Perspective on Behavior, Activity Patterns, and Lifestyle in the Eastern Woodlands of North America

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This project tests the hypothesis that the physical terrain of the environment directly influenced behavior, activity patterns, and lifestyle of Native Americans who lived in the eastern Woodlands of North America. Specifically, this research hypothesizes that a heterogeneous terrain (e.g., varied eleva-tion, mountains, hills, and steep inclines), results in a higher prevalence of degenerative joint disease (DJD) and increased bone robusticity of the femur, while a less heterogeneous terrain (e.g., flat topogra-phy) produces opposite results. Furthermore, the biological consequences of a more varied landscape include reduced mobility and limited access to resources at an earlier age. This project utilizes the Native American component of the History of Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere database and proposes to collect data from two additional agricultural sites. The paleoenvironment will be modeled by creating a spatially referenced database consisting of biological and ecological data. Prevalence of DJD and the degree of bone robusticity will be used to reconstruct behav-ior, activity patterns, and lifestyle, while the prevalence of other health indicators such as cranial poros-ities, osteoperiostitis, caries, abscesses, and trauma will be used to assess the impact of the environment on the healthy functioning of body systems. The quality of biological health and successful adaptation to the environment will be examined in light of detailed reconstruction of paleoecological variables and spa-tial relationships. The broader impacts of this project are its contribution to enhance infrastructure for research and education and to disseminate the data obtained from this research. This project marks the first large scale application of GIS methods in bioarchaeological analyses. This project will specifically contribute to both the fields of Anthropology and Geography, as well as to the scientific community in general. The current History of Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere database is available to the public and it is the intention of this project to make the spatially referenced database available to the public as well. Re-searchers will be able to access the database and use it for their own research purposes. This will con-tinue to facilitate collaborative efforts to pool resources and data for a better understanding of past human variation. The size of the existing database demonstrates the importance of collaboration and standardiza-tion of data collection procedures. This project will yield an example for continued work in this direction. Additionally, further integration of the fields of Anthropology and Geography will result, contributing to future geospatial bioarchaeological studies.