Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Foraging Variability in the Prehistoric Caribbean: A Paired Site Comparison from Carriacou, Grenada

克里斯蒂娜·乔瓦斯将对加勒比海卡里亚库岛大湾和萨巴赞考古遗址的动物遗骸进行挖掘和分析。这项工作将在唐纳德·格雷森博士的监督下进行，并与国际指导的卡里亚库考古实地项目一起进行。卡里亚库是格林纳达民族的一部分，是位于小安的列斯群岛南部的一个小岛(32平方公里)。在卡里亚库考古田野项目开始在这里进行调查之前，人们对该岛的史前历史知之甚少。发掘发现，大湾和沙巴赞是沿海村庄，大约在公元400-1200年间被占领，人们在那里种植庄稼，狩猎和捕鱼，建造大型民居，制作陶器，并从事仪式活动。这项研究有助于建立对该岛及其周边地区的基本文化历史认识。乔瓦斯将调查这些遗址的动物考古记录，以评估其居住者所追求的生存战略的性质。动物考古记录(食用后被丢弃的动物的骨骼和贝壳)代表了人类觅食活动的副产品，并提供了关于人们猎杀、捕捞和收集的动物类型、用于这样做的技术、所开发的栖息地以及所造成的生态影响的信息。该项目专注于这种觅食行为鲜为人知的方面，即行为差异如何影响更大种群中群体的资源开发战略。例如，相似的环境是否会导致类似的觅食行为？以及，在什么情况下，预计会出现不同的环境影响？这些问题对于理解社会历史过程是塑造景观的动态力量非常重要，就像生态力量所做的那样。研究地点之间文化和环境限制的相似性使这些问题可以通过比较分析来解决，其中可以控制生物多样性等背景变量。该项目评估了大湾和沙赞的觅食策略，以确定它们是否以及如何不同，以及随着时间的推移，每种策略可能对当地生态产生了什么连锁影响。它将通过满足生存需求，丰富人们与环境互动的最基本方式的理解，并通过解释人类在这一背景下的行为和决策，为人类学理论做出贡献。更广泛地说，这项研究对物种灭绝和生物多样性的当代问题具有重要影响。加强对资源开发战略是如何形成条件的理解，可能使科学家能够在人类行为和环境后果之间建立更精确的因果联系。通过加深对史前人类在塑造现代环境中的作用的理解，这项研究的结果可能有助于现代保护生物学努力中的管理决策。格林纳达的公众宣传活动将包括一个博物馆展览，将史前饮食的发现与当代岛上的食物联系起来。公众讲座将提高人们对卡里亚库丰富的史前历史以及社区一级参与保护这一考古遗产的重要性的认识。研究成果将纳入教学课程，并通过出版物和会议报告向考古界传播。最后，该项目将为提交人提供高级动物考古分析技术方面的继续研究生培训。

Christina Giovas will conduct excavation and analysis of animal remains from the archaeological sites of Grand Bay and Sabazan on the Caribbean island of Carriacou. This work will be carried out under the supervision of Dr. Donald Grayson in conjunction with the internationally directed Carriacou Archaeological Field Project. Carriacou, part of the nation of Grenada, is a small (32 km2) island located in the southern Lesser Antilles. Until the Carriacou Archaeological Field Project began its investigation here, very little was known about the island's prehistoric past. Excavation has revealed that Grand Bay and Sabazan were coastal villages, occupied from around AD 400 - 1200, where people cultivated crops, hunted and fished, built large dwelling structures, made pottery, and engaged in ceremonial activities. This research contributes to efforts to establish a basic culture historical understanding for the island and surrounding area.Ms. Giovas will investigate the zooarchaeological record from these sites to evaluate the nature of the subsistence strategies their occupants pursued. The zooarchaeological record (bones and shells of animals discarded after consumption) represents the byproducts of human foraging activities and provides information about the types of animals people hunted, fished, and collected, the technology used to do so, the habitats exploited, and the ecological impacts incurred. The project focuses on poorly understood aspects of this foraging behavior, namely how behavioral differences shape resource exploitation strategies of groups within a larger population. For instance, will similar contexts result in similar foraging behavior? And, under what circumstances might divergent environmental impacts be expected to arise as a result? These questions are important to understanding social-historical processes as dynamic forces shaping landscapes, much as ecological forces do. Similarity in cultural and environmental constraints between research sites allows these issues to be addressed through a comparative analysis, where background variables, such as biodiversity, can be controlled. This project evaluates Grand Bay and Sabazan foraging strategies to determine if and how these differ and what cascading effects each may have had on the local ecology over time. It will enrich understanding of the most basic ways people interact with their environment, through meeting subsistence needs, and contribute to anthropological theory by explaining human behavior and decision-making in this context. More broadly, this research has important implications for contemporary issues of species extinction and biodiversity. Enhanced understanding of how resource exploitation strategies are conditioned may allow scientists to establish more precise causal links between human actions and environmental consequences over time. Results from this research may help with management decisions in modern-day conservation biology efforts by deepening understanding of the role that prehistoric peoples played in shaping modern environments. Public outreach in Grenada will include a museum display relating findings on prehistoric diet to contemporary island foodways. Public talks will raise awareness of Carriacou's rich prehistory and the importance of community-level involvement in safeguarding this archaeological heritage. Research findings will be incorporated into teaching curricula and disseminated to the archaeological community through publication and conference presentations. Lastly, the project will provide the author continued graduate training in advanced techniques of zooarchaeological analysis.