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

在Margaret Nelson博士的指导下，Karen Schollmeyer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定居模式的变化之间的关系。公元1130年左右，该地区长期被占领的大型村庄人口减少，人们搬到了更小、分散的村庄。这种戏剧性的聚落重组和随之而来的物质文化变化与资源压力和社会变化有关。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的一个关键研究问题。资源压力常常被认为是造成社会和文化变化的原因，包括定居模式的转变。这个项目研究粮食紧张在大村庄人口减少中的作用。目前对这一变化的理解表明，人类对野生资源的影响、降水减少的时期以及社会压力可能都促成了人们从聚集的村庄向分散的村庄迁移的决定。然而，这些变化对人类所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，着重于长期人口-资源不平衡的环境解释可能被过分强调了。这些变化也许可以用一些因素来更好地解释，比如在较短的时间尺度内资源可用性的相对变化，这些因素更容易被人类直接感知，因此更有可能影响行为变化。为了理解这些变化，人类行为生态学的理论观点被用来产生关于资源可用性变化如何影响人类行为的预期，包括对食物压力和适当反应的感知，如果Mimbres定居点重组在一定程度上是一种最小化食物压力风险的策略。关于定居模式、植物遗迹和动物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。两种数学模型解释了考古数据。一个离散时间动态模型估算了公元1000年至1230年间偶蹄动物种群数量变化对人类狩猎压力的响应。第二个关于生产性农业用地作为降雨和人类土地利用函数的数学模型，基于集水区分析、土壤湿度特征和人类对土壤影响的考虑，评估了生产性农业用地可用性的变化。这些分析的结果将表明食物压力水平和频率的时空变化如何影响人类改变定居和土地利用战略的决策。这项研究以最近的考古实地工作为基础，结合了多种分析方法。研究结果将有助于当前关于影响Mimbres定居点重组因素的争论。这里研究的聚落重组与西南其他地区众所周知的区域遗弃之间的显著对比，也可能阐明了人类行为模式与应对环境变化的灵活、有弹性的策略有关。这项博士论文研究将为Schollmeyer提供教育机会，并涉及一名本科生助理进行科学研究。

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.