Archaeological, Geomorphological, and Ethno-ecological Investigations of Tokelau: Origins, Migrations, Adaptations, and Ecological Dynamics of an Atoll People

David Addison博士和一个国际科学家小组将利用国家科学基金会的支助，调查托克劳环礁资源管理的长期历史。一千年来，人类成功地利用了这些环礁脆弱的环境，这一过程需要建立可持续资源管理机制。在某些方面，这些环礁可以被视为整个地球最近才面临的可持续性问题的一个缩影。或许可以从托克劳在这方面的千年经验中吸取全球教训。托克劳由三个环礁组成，位于美属萨摩亚领土以北300英里处的赤道太平洋。全球气候变化(GCC)和海平面上升将对这些环礁产生不成比例的影响，因为它们的陆地面积很小(~2000英亩)，其中大部分海拔不到8英尺。该项目提供了研究整个环礁群岛的机会，采用了一种将资源管理的现代基线数据与考古上对过去千年的资源使用情况的了解相结合的方法。它将讨论目前在太平洋考古学中激烈辩论的主题：东波利尼西亚的殖民时间和路线；文化变化和民族起源；隔离与互动。作为这些专题的组成部分，将对海平面变化进行研究，提供赤道中南部太平洋地区急需的数据点。该项目还将提供整个环礁群岛脆弱环境中古代资源管理的时间和空间变化的第一个案例研究。该项目鼓励多学科研究，汇聚了来自各种科学领域的研究人员。通过来自托克劳、萨摩亚、美属萨摩亚、新西兰、日本、夏威夷、法国和美国的参与者的参与，促进了国际合作。科学团队经过精心挑选，以提供初级和高级学者、男性和女性的组合，他们既来自代表充分的群体，也来自代表不足的群体。基于WWW的成果将可以分发给大众和科学受众。这项研究还将有助于在项目实地考察期间通过社区意识计划提高本土科学能力。美洲土著萨摩亚大学生将作为同行导师和伙伴研究人员发挥关键作用，从而向他们灌输对科学研究的欣赏和对国际推广与合作的兴趣(美国太平洋岛民在科学界的代表性不足)。

National Science Foundation support will be used by Dr. David Addison and an international team of scientists to investigate the long-term history of resource management in the Tokelau Atolls. The fragile environment of these atolls has been successfully used by humans for a millennium, a process that has necessitated the development of mechanisms for sustainable resource management. In some ways, these atolls can be seen as a microcosm of the sustainability issues only recently facing the entire planet. Perhaps global lessons can be learned from Tokelau's millennium of experience in this area. Tokelau is a group of three atolls located in the equatorial Pacific 300 miles north of the US Territory of American Samoa. Global Climate Change (GCC) and rising sea level will have a disproportionate effect on these atolls because of their tiny landmass (~2000 acres), most of which is less than 8 feet above sea level. This project offers the opportunity to study a whole atoll archipelago with an approach that integrates modern baseline data on resource management with an archaeological understanding of resource use over the past millennium. It will address topics that are currently hotly debated in Pacific archaeology regarding: the timing and routes of colonization to East Polynesia; culture change and ethnogenesis; and isolation vs. interaction. Integral to these topics will be research on sea-level change, providing much-needed data points in the south-central equatorial Pacific. The project will also provide the first case study of temporal and spatial variation in ancient resource management across the fragile environments of a whole atoll archipelago. This project encourages multidisciplinary research, bringing together researchers from a wide variety of scientific fields. International collaboration is fostered through the involvement of participants from Tokelau, Samoa, American Samoa, New Zealand, Japan, Hawaii, France and the USA. The scientific team has been chosen with care to provide a combination of junior and senior academics, men and women, who come from both well-represented and under-represented groups. www-based results will permit distribution to both popular and scientific audiences. The research will also serve to increase indigenous science capacity through a community awareness program during project fieldwork. Native American Samoan college students will play a key role as peer mentors and partner researchers, thus inculcating in them both an appreciation for scientific research and an interest in international outreach and cooperation (US Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in the sciences).