The Gazelle Project: Human-Gazelle (Gazella gazella) Interactions Across the Transition to Agriculture in the Southern Levant

美国国家科学基金会的资金将支持一个为期三年的项目，该项目由娜塔莉·芒罗博士指导，将记录人类对瞪羚种群的影响及其对西南亚动物驯化过程的影响。 越来越多的证据表明，山羊、绵羊和猪的驯化是该地区北方和东部地区密集的人类狩猎传统的一个过程。 虽然大多数注意力都集中在家畜本身，但在黎凡特南部，最常被猎杀的动物（山地瞪羚;瞪羚）从未被驯化。 然而，来自考古学上的瞪羚遗骸的证据迫使学者们认为，密集的狩猎导致了瞪羚种群结构和平均体型的变化。 这些解释是挑衅性的，但不幸的是，不兼容的数据收集程序，相互矛盾的解释，方法问题的出版物，以及缺乏系统的研究产生了不一致的结果。 拟议的研究旨在通过将标准化的数据收集协议，改进的方法和现代骨骼模型应用于来自黎凡特南部的一些史前瞪羚收藏来解决这些困难。 这样一个研究计划是必要的，以确定潜在的人类影响野生动物种群的范围，独立于是否发生驯化，并评估人类狩猎压力和气候变化的作用，在南部黎凡特农业起源的过程中。 特别是，这项研究将有助于在更广泛的肥沃的新月地区的植物和动物驯化的新兴区域背景。 因此，它补充了最近的重要项目，追踪从人类密集狩猎到动物管理和绵羊、山羊和猪的驯化的进化过程。该项目将通过整合来自现代瞪羚骨骼标本和瞪羚遗骸的模型，系统地评估人类与瞪羚相互作用的性质，这些模型来自17个考古职业，可追溯到21，500 - 8，200 cal BP。 这项研究将与以色列海法大学的Guy Bar-Oz合作进行，他已经获得了该项目的独立资金。 该项目的优势在于其对埋藏学、生物学、经济学和生态学数据集进行了前所未有的研究，以重建人类对过去瞪羚种群的影响。 除了上述研究目标之外，该项目还将把来自不同种族和宗教背景的以色列学生纳入其研究范围;在以色列海法市即将翻修的斯特凯利斯史前博物馆展出该项目的成果，供学童和公众学习和欣赏。 该项目将提供一个论坛，对研究生进行大型研究项目所需的各种活动的培训。 该项目是以色列（海法大学）和美国（康涅狄格大学）机构之间的合作努力，旨在通过深入的研究和合作，培养高级和学生合作伙伴之间新的和持久的学术关系。

NSF funding will support a three year project directed by Dr. Natalie Munro that will document human impacts on gazelle populations and their implications for the process of animal domestication in southwest Asia. Accumulating evidence indicates that the domestication of goat, sheep and pig was a process that arose out of intensive human hunting traditions in the northern and eastern reaches of the region. Although most attention has focused on the domestic animals themselves, in the southern Levant, the most commonly hunted animal, (the mountain gazelle; Gazella gazella) was never domesticated. Nevertheless, evidence from archaeological gazelle remains has compelled scholars to argue that intensive hunting caused changes in gazelle population structures and average body-size. These interpretations are provocative, but unfortunately incompatible data collection procedures, the publication of conflicting interpretations, methodological problems, and the lack of systematic study have produced inconsistent results. The proposed research aims to address these difficulties by applying standardized data collection protocols, refined methodologies and modern skeletal models to a number of prehistoric gazelle collections from the southern Levant. Such a research program is needed to define the range of potential human impacts on wild animal populations, independent of whether domestication occurred, and assess the role of human hunting pressure and climatic change in the process of agricultural origins in the southern Levant. In particular, this research will contribute to the emerging regional context of plant and animal domestication across the broader Fertile Crescent. As such it complements significant recent projects tracing the evolutionary process from intensive human hunting, to animal management and domestication in sheep and goat and pig.The project will systematically assess the nature of human-gazelle interactions by integrating models derived from modern skeletal gazelle collections and gazelle remains obtained from 17 archaeological occupations dating between 21,500-8,200 cal BP. The research will be undertaken with the collaboration of Guy Bar-Oz from the University of Haifa in Israel, who has obtained independent funding for his portion of the project. The strength of this project lies in its unprecedented examination of taphonomic, biological, economic and ecological datasets to reconstruct human impacts on past gazelle populations. Beyond the preceding research goals, this project will integrate Israeli students from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds under its research umbrella; exhibit results from the project at the soon to be renovated Stekelis Museum of Prehistory in the city of Haifa, Israel, for the education and enjoyment of school children and the general public. The project will provide a forum to train graduate students in the full spectrum of activities required by a large-scale research project. The project is a cooperative effort between Israeli (University of Haifa) and American (University of Connecticut) institutions and seeks to cultivate new and lasting scholarly relationships between both senior and student partners through intensive research and collaboration.