Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Resource Stress and Settlement Pattern Change in the Eastern Mimbres Area

卡伦·肖尔迈尔在玛格丽特·纳尔逊博士的指导下，将研究史前气候变化、人类对环境的影响以及新墨西哥州西南部明布雷斯东部地区考古聚落模式变化之间的关系。大约在公元1130年左右，随着人们迁入分散的小村庄，该地区长期占据的大村庄人口减少。对这种戏剧性的定居点重组和随之而来的物质文化变化的解释与资源压力和社会变化都有关。几十年来，资源压力，特别是食物压力与人类行为变化之间的关系一直是人类学中的一个关键研究问题。资源紧张常常被认为是导致社会和文化变化的原因，包括定居点模式的转变。这个项目考察了食物压力在大村庄人口减少中的作用。目前理解这一变化的方法表明，人类对野生资源的影响、降雨量减少的时期以及社会压力可能都是导致决定从聚集的村庄搬到分散的小村庄的原因。然而，这些变化对人类经历的资源压力水平的影响尚未得到明确证明。在考虑该地区的文化变化时，侧重于长期人口资源失衡的环境解释可能被过分强调了。这些变化可能更好地被因素解释--例如较短时间尺度上资源可获得性的相对变化--更直接地被人类感知，因此更有可能影响行为变化。为了理解这些变化，从人类行为生态学的理论视角被用来产生关于资源可获得性的变化将如何影响人类行为的预期，包括对食物压力的感知和适当的反应，如果Mimbres定居点重组在一定程度上是为了将食物压力的风险降至最低的战略。关于聚落模式、植物遗骸和动物群组合的考古数据被用来评估资源利用的时间变化在多大程度上表明了理论预测的对食物压力的反应。有两个数学模型可以解释考古数据。偶蹄龙种群数量随人类狩猎压力变化的离散时间动态模型估计，从公元1000年到1230年，每年都有大型猎物可供使用。作为降雨和人类土地利用的函数的生产性农业用地的第二个数学模型基于集水区分析、土壤水分特征和人类对土壤的影响的考虑，评估了生产性农田区域可用性的变化。这些分析的结果将表明食物压力水平和频率的时间和空间变异性如何有助于人类做出改变聚落和土地利用战略的决定。这项研究建立在最近的考古田野工作基础上，并结合了各种分析方法。结果将有助于目前关于影响Mimbres定居点重组的因素的辩论。这里研究的定居点重组与西南其他地区众所周知的地区性遗弃之间的鲜明对比，也可能揭示出与灵活、有弹性的应对环境变化战略有关的人类行为模式。这项博士论文研究将为Schollmeyer提供教育机会，并邀请一名本科生助理参与科学研究。

Karen Schollmeyer, under the supervision of Dr. Margaret Nelson, will examine relationships between prehistoric climatic variability, human impacts on the environment, and changes in archaeological settlement patterns in the eastern Mimbres area of southwestern New Mexico. Around A.D. 1130 large, long-occupied villages in the area were depopulated as people moved into smaller, dispersed hamlets. Explanations for this dramatic settlement reorganization and accompanying changes in material culture are linked to both resource stress and social changes. The relationship between resource stress, particularly food stress, and changes in human behavior has been a key research issue in anthropology for decades. Resource stress is often cited as contributing to social and cultural changes, including shifts in settlement patterns. This project examines the role of food stress in the depopulation of large villages. Current approaches to understanding this change suggest human impacts on wild resources, a period of decreased precipitation, and social pressures may all have contributed to decisions to move from aggregated villages to dispersed hamlets. However, the effects of these changes on the levels of resource stress experienced by human populations have not been clearly demonstrated. Environmental explanations focused on long term population-resource imbalances may have been overemphasized in accounting for cultural changes in the area. Such changes may be better explained by factors-such as relative changes in resource availability at shorter time scales-more directly perceptible by humans and thus more likely to influence behavioral changes.In order to understand these changes, theoretical perspectives from human behavioral ecology are used to generate expectations about how variation in resource availability would have influenced human behavior, including perceptions of food stress and appropriate responses, if the Mimbres settlement reorganization was in part a strategy for minimizing risks of food stress. Archaeological data on settlement patterns, plant remains, and faunal assemblages are used to assess the degree to which temporal changes in resource use suggest responses to food stress as predicted by theory. Two mathematical models inform the interpretation of the archaeological data. A discrete time dynamic model of artiodactyl population change in response to human hunting pressure estimates annual large game availability from A.D. 1000 to 1230. A second mathematical model of productive agricultural land as a function of rainfall and human land use assesses changes in the availability of productive agricultural field areas based on water catchment analysis, soil moisture characteristics, and considerations of human impact on soils. The results of these analyses will indicate how temporal and spatial variability in levels and frequencies of food stress contributed to human decisions to change settlement and land use strategies.This research builds on recent archaeological fieldwork and combines a variety of analytical methods. The results will contribute to the current debate on factors influencing the Mimbres settlement reorganization. The striking contrast between the settlement reorganization examined here and well-known regional abandonments in other areas of the Southwest may also illuminate patterns in human behavior related to flexible, resilient strategies for dealing with environmental change. This PhD dissertation research will provide educational opportunities for Schollmeyer, and involve an undergraduate assistant in scientific research.