Early Holocene Zooarchaeology of Las Vegas Occupations in Coastal Ecuador

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，包括Peter Stahl（纽约州宾厄姆顿大学）、Karen Stothert（圣安东尼奥德克萨斯大学）、Markus Tellkamp（密歇根州米尔萨普学院）和Philippe Bearez（巴黎自然历史博物馆）在内的考古学家团队将与厄瓜多尔科学家合作，分析与南美洲最早和最著名的早至中全新世（距今10800年至6600年）考古文化有关的动物骨骼和贝壳标本。这些材料是从被称为拉斯维加斯占领的厄瓜多尔西部圣埃琳娜半岛的五个考古遗址中发现的，它应该为这些早期人类如何利用当地资源，以及这与大约1万年前南美全新世开始时的早期定居生活、仪式、对植物的操纵和区域生态之间的关系提供重要数据。相关的项目问题考察了在沿海环境变化的背景下定居策略的变化，从早期（10000 -8000 BP）到中期全新世（8000-6600 BP）职业的资源开发转变，保存了早期殡葬仪式的证据，并提出了重建过去全新世环境的建议。该研究组合包括至少25,000种脊椎动物，以及目前存放在厄瓜多尔和佛罗里达州的未知数量的无脊椎动物标本。在厄瓜多尔，由外国和当地合作者组成的研究小组将对无脊椎动物标本进行鉴定和分析，并对脊椎动物标本进行分类，准备运往美国。整个藏品，包括目前存放在佛罗里达州的标本，将在纽约（非鸟类脊椎动物）、密西西比（鸟类）和巴黎（鱼类）的不同实验室进行鉴定和分析。在项目结束后，所有材料将被组装到博物馆级的存储容器中，并通过事先的协议，将在佛罗里达自然历史博物馆进行管理。这项合作研究将提供南美洲全新世早期考古文化相关动物材料的最大数据库。由于它们的极端古老，这些考古背景很少得到良好的保存。因此，重要的是要最大限度地从那些罕见的病例中获得所有可用于研究的证据。拉斯维加斯的考古文化与其他全新世早期西海岸的职业截然不同，后者几乎完全集中在海洋资源的开发上。拉斯维加斯的植物种植记录始于公元前9000年之前，似乎与秘鲁北部的内陆遗址、安第斯山脉西部的森林斜坡、中美洲和哥伦比亚的早、中全新世文化有更多的共同之处，这些文化将驯化植物的小规模种植与树木产品结合到早期的新热带生存系统中。该项目是由美国、厄瓜多尔和法国的考古学家、动物学家和生态学家在厄瓜多尔进行的多学科和国际合作。该团队为Museo Los Amantes de Sumpa博物馆做出了贡献，这是一个以社区为基础的博物馆和文化中心，位于拉斯维加斯类型的遗址上，今天是一个具有国家和国际科学重要性的考古遗址。该团队与位于瓜亚基尔的厄瓜多尔国家文化遗产研究所、位于厄瓜多尔圣埃琳娜的Amantes de Sumpa博物馆以及新的圣埃琳娜半岛大学（UPSE）的考古部门共享资源。

With National Science Foundation support, a team of archaeologists, including Peter Stahl (Binghamton University, NY), Karen Stothert (University of Texas at San Antonio), Markus Tellkamp (Millsap College, MS), and Philippe Bearez (Natural History Museum, Paris) will collaborate with Ecuadorian scientists in the analysis of animal bone and shell specimens associated with one of the earliest and best known Early to Mid-Holocene (10,800 to 6600 BP) archaeological cultures from South America. The material was recovered from five archaeological sites of what is termed the Las Vegas occupation of Ecuador's western Santa Elena peninsula, and should provide important data for how these early people exploited local resources and how this was related to early sedentary life, ceremonialism, the manipulation of plants, and regional ecology at the onset of the South American Holocene some 10,000 years ago. Interrelated project questions examine how settlement strategies changed in the context of a changing coastal environment, shifts in resource exploitation from the Early (10,000-8000 BP) to Mid-Holocene (8000-6600 BP) occupations, preserved evidence for early mortuary ceremonialism, and proposed reconstructions of past Holocene environments. The study assemblage consists of at least 25,000 vertebrate, and an unknown number of invertebrate, specimens currently stored in Ecuador and Florida. In Ecuador, the research team of foreign and local collaborators will identify and analyze invertebrate specimens, and sort the vertebrate specimens in preparation for shipment to the United States. The entire collection, including specimens currently stored in Florida will be identified and analyzed at different laboratories in New York (non-bird vertebrates), Mississippi (birds), and Paris (fish). Upon conclusion of the project all materials will be assembled into museum quality storage containers, and through prior agreement, will be curated at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The collaborative research will provide the largest data base of associated faunal material from an archaeological culture from the earlier Holocene of South America. Due to their extreme antiquity these archaeological contexts are seldom preserved with good resolution. As a result, it is important to maximize all evidence from those rare cases that are available for study. The Las Vegas archaeological culture is quite distinct from other Early Holocene occupations of the western coast which were focused almost exclusively on the exploitation of marine resources. Las Vegas, with its record of plant cultivation beginning before 9000 B.P., appears to share more in common with inland sites of northern Peru, forested western Andean slopes, and Early and Mid-Holocene cultures of Central America and Colombia that incorporated small-scale cultivation of domesticated plants along with tree products into early neotropical subsistence systems. The project is a multidisciplinary and international collaborative effort by US, Ecuadorian, and French archaeologists, zoologists, and ecologists with considerable experience in Ecuador. The team contributes to the Museo Los Amantes de Sumpa, a community-based museum and cultural center located on the Vegas type site, which is today an archaeological site of national and international scientific importance. The team shares resources with the Ecuadorian Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural in Guayaquil, the Museum of the Amantes de Sumpa, in Santa Elena, Ecuador, and the archaeology section of the new University of the Peninsula of Santa Elena (UPSE).