Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Costly Signaling in the Archaeological Record: A Case Study in Western North America

男人和女人的行为方式往往是把自己的利益放在第一位，即使他们的决定似乎与对方有冲突。随着研究人员试图解释人们如何合作形成大多数社会群体中存在的性别分工，这一点变得越来越明显。对这种基本合作单位的传统解释是，男子打猎，妇女采集，以便为家人提供食物。这一解释受到质疑，因为它没有考虑到已知的人类行为，例如狩猎和广泛分享风险和不可预测的资源，如大型游戏。成功的狩猎者并没有养家糊口，而是通过拥有更多的配偶、子女和盟友来获得更多的间接利益。代价信号理论认为，这些行为是潜在属性的诚实信号，接收者通过知道谁是社区中最好的伴侣和盟友而从这些信号中获益。这表明，这是自我利益，而不是合作，是激励觅食决定之间的信号和接收器。唐纳德·格雷森的监督下，雅各布·费舍尔将调查男性昂贵的信号行为如何影响弗里蒙特的社会和自然环境，弗里蒙特是一个文化群体，在公元400年至1300年之间，在北美东部大盆地和科罗拉多高原从事园艺和觅食生活方式。人们在多大程度上是基于昂贵的信号动机而不是直接的经济回报来做出狩猎决定的，这将取决于在一个地点发现的动物遗骸的种类及其在家庭之间的分布：一个物种的信号价值将取决于捕获动物的成本。这些物种是最有效的信号，预计将广泛分布在家庭之间。所涉及的成本包括运输，因为猎人受到昂贵的信号激励，可能会走得更远，以捕捉稀有，更有价值的游戏。运输将使用锶同位素比率（87 Sr/86 Sr）进行检测，这是一种创新的方法，可以将骨骼材料来源于特定的地理位置。昂贵的信号理论对于理解人类行为的变化至关重要。因此，拟议的研究有可能促进我们对性别觅食策略，性别分工和家庭间合作的理解，这些对于我们理解过去和现在的社会关系以及人类对生物景观的影响至关重要。最终，这将对我们理解性别是如何构建的产生重大影响，这是整个社会科学的一个主要话题，对不断讨论性别问题的公众来说非常重要。从该项目中获得的信息将通过一个网站传播，该网站以面向公众的方式介绍研究情况。公开演讲将在犹他州的弗里蒙特印第安州立公园博物馆和西雅图的伯克博物馆进行。最后，本科生将被纳入研究过程中，无论是在动物群分析，并通过在未来的课程由Co-PI教授的教材。

Men and women often behave in ways that put their own interests first even when their decisions appear to be in conflict with one another. This has become increasingly apparent as researchers try to explain how people cooperate to form the sexual division of labor present in most social groups. The traditional explanation of this basic unit of cooperation suggests that men hunt and women gather in order to provide their families with food. This explanation has been questioned because it does not account for known human behaviors, such as the hunting and widespread sharing of risky and unpredictable resources like large game. Instead of providing for his family, the successful hunter appears to receive more indirect benefits by having more spouses, children, and allies. Costly signaling theory argues that these acts serve as honest signals of underlying attributes, and receivers gain from these signals by knowing who the best mates and allies are in the community. This suggests that it is self-interest and not cooperation that is motivating foraging decisions among signalers and receivers. Under the supervision of Dr. Donald Grayson, Jacob Fisher will investigate how male costly signaling behavior impacted the social and natural environment of the Fremont, a cultural group practicing both horticulture and foraging lifeways in the eastern Great Basin and Colorado Plateau of North America between AD 400 and 1300. The degree to which men were making hunting decisions based on costly signaling motivations instead of immediate economic returns will be determined by the kinds of animal remains found within a site and their distributions between households: the signaling value of a species will be determined by the costs invested in capturing the animals. Those species that are the most effective signals are predicted to be distributed widely between households. The costs involved include transportation, as hunters motivated by costly signaling may travel farther to capture rare, more valued game. Transportation will be detected using strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr), an innovative approach that allows one to source skeletal materials to specific geographic localities.Costly signaling theory is critical for understanding variability in human behavior. As such, the proposed research has the potential of advancing our understanding of gendered foraging strategies, sexual division of labor, and inter-household cooperation that are so critical to our understanding of past and present social relationships and human impacts on the biotic landscape. Ultimately, this will have significant impact on our understanding of how gender is constructed, a major topic throughout the social sciences and of major importance to the general public where issues of gender are continually discussed. The information gained from this project will be disseminated through a website that describes the research in a public-oriented fashion. Public talks will be conducted at the Fremont Indian State Park museum in Utah and the Burke Museum in Seattle. Lastly, undergraduate students will be integrated into the research process, both during the faunal analysis and through teaching materials in future courses taught by the Co-PI.