Collaborative Research: Development and spread of Great Basin technologies

在国家科学基金会的支持下，杰尔默·W·埃肯斯博士和卡尔·P·利波博士将研究新想法是如何产生和传播的。他们的具体研究调查了加利福尼亚州东部欧文斯山谷和死亡山谷的史前美洲原住民陶器。他们将使用发光测年来确定新陶器类型的时间，使用仪器中子活化分析来检查锅的成分是如何变化的，并将使用形状测量来研究研究区域内锅的形状是如何变化的。这些分析使他们能够衡量史前陶器技术的精细变化，从公元1300年前左右的引入到公元1840年左右的废弃。这项研究在许多方面都是创新的。首先，人们对狩猎采集陶器知之甚少。他们的研究将突出陶器使用的最早背景，为派尤特和肖肖尼学会为什么开始制造和使用陶罐，以及他们如何随着时间的推移发展这项技术提供线索。其次，这项研究应该产生高分辨率的时间数据，这是使用其他测年技术所不可能的，例如放射性碳或黑铁矿水合作用。有了这种精细的时间控制，他们应该能够跟踪几代陶工的决定。第三，使用文化传播模型，Eerkens和Lipo将提供关于人们如何在小规模社会环境中传播技术知识的重要细节。基于社会学研究，科学家对信息在大规模和工业环境中是如何传播的了解很多(尽管肯定不是全部)，特别是在电视、广播和报纸等大众媒体司空见惯的地方。然而，在小规模的狩猎-采集者中，对这些过程的了解要少得多。填补这一空白对于建立关于信息传播的一般人类状况的一般理论是重要的。第四，这项研究将包括很少有其他研究使用的时间尺度。现代信息传播研究最多建立在10年到20年的信息基础上。这项研究利用考古数据，将包括500多年的信息传输，提供一个独特的一瞥技术信息在更长的时间间隔发生了什么。该项目将对加州大学戴维斯分校和加州州立大学长滩分校的学术氛围产生重大影响。这两个项目都为科学领域中人数较少的学生提供服务，并将向这些学生介绍考古学职业。将从这些人中雇佣几名学生来参与这个项目。此外，Eerkens和Lipo计划将这些发现纳入UCD人类学博物馆为学童提供的教学模块。通过UCD推广计划，每年有500多名来自戴维斯和伍德兰地区的K-12学童参观博物馆。孩子们学习接触前的美洲原住民的生活方式，以及考古学家如何从材料遗迹中重建过去。这种外展通过提供与考古学家和真实文物的互动和动手体验，使过去变得生动起来。此外，博物馆的陈列将随时向公众开放。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Jelmer W. Eerkens and Dr. Carl P. Lipo will investigate how new ideas emerge and spread. Their specific research investigates prehistoric Native American pottery in the Owens and Death Valleys of eastern California. They will be using luminescence dating to determine the timing of new pottery types, instrumental neutron activation analysis to examine how the composition of the pots changed, and measurements of form to study how pot shapes varied in the study area. These analyses enable them to measure fine-scaled changes in prehistoric pottery technologies, from their introduction around AD 1300 years ago to their abandonment around AD 1840.The research is innovative in a number of respects. First, little is known about hunter-gatherer pottery. Their research will highlight the earliest contexts of pottery use, providing hints as to why Paiute and Shoshone societies began making and using ceramic pots and how they developed the technology over time. Second, the research should generate high-resolution temporal data that is not possible using other dating techniques, such as radiocarbon or obsidian hydration. With this fine temporal control, they should be able to track the decisions of individual generations of potters. Third, using a cultural transmission model, Eerkens and Lipo will provide important details on how people transmit technological knowledge in small-scale social settings. Based on sociological research, scientists know much (though certainly not everything) about how information is transmitted in large-scale and industrial settings, particularly where mass media such as television, radio, and newspapers are commonplace. However, much less is known about these processes among small-scale hunter-gatherers. Filling in this gap is important for general theory building about the general human condition of information transmission. Fourth, the research will encompass a time scale few other studies have used. Modern studies of information transmission are based on, at most, 10 to 20 years of information. This study, using archaeological data, will include over 500 years of information transmission, providing a unique glimpse of what happens to technological information at longer time intervals. The project will have a significant impact on the intellectual climate of University of California at Davis and California State University Long Beach. Both programs serve large populations of underrepresented students in the sciences, and will introduce these students to careers in archaeology. Several students will be hired from this population to work on the project. Furthermore, Eerkens and Lipo plan to incorporate the findings into an instructional module for school children in the Anthropology Museum at UCD. Through the UCD outreach program over 500 K-12 school children from the Davis and Woodland area visit the museum each year. Children learn about pre-contact Native American lifeways and how archaeologists reconstruct the past from material remains. Such outreach brings the past alive by providing interactive and hands-on experience with archaeologists and real artifacts. Additionally, the museum display will be visible and open to the public at all times.