Pleistocene-Holocene Transition Era Human Subsistence and Paleoecology at Marmes Rockshelter, Southeastern Washington

华盛顿州东南部 Marmes Rockshelter 的更新世-全新世过渡时代人类生存和古生态学

• 批准号: 0912851
• 负责人: R. Lee Lyman
• 金额: $ 13.1万
• 依托单位: University of Missouri-Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-15 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0912851&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Pleistocene; Holocene; Transition; Era; Human

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. R. Lee Lyman will evaluate the alternative hypotheses concerning the subsistence strategies practiced the earliest human inhabitants of North America. Some archaeologists believe that these early groups were specialized hunters of mega-mammals and only occasionally exploited small game; others argue that they were dietary generalists who opportunistically exploited an occasional mammoth or bison. Previous statistical analyses of published data by different researchers have produced conflicting results, but all researchers agree that the only way to choose the correct hypothesis is to analyze data newly derived from faunal or paleozoological remains.Appropriate paleozoological remains were excavated in the 1960s from Marmes Rockshelter in southeastern Washington State. The Marmes site's stratigraphic column spans the PHT and many faunal remains were collected from 1-mm mesh sieves, making the collection unique in the western U.S. The small sample of remains that have been studied to date suggest that the entire collection will consist of about 4500 identifiable bones and teeth distributed across six stratigraphically distinct assemblages. Initial paleoamerican subsistence practices and shifts in subsistence pursuits as people learned about their newly colonized landscape will be documented with fine-grain temporal resolution and notably large samples. Further, paleoecological responses of resident fauna to the environmentally dynamic PHT in the form of shifting phenotypes and taxonomic abundances will be revealed. Knowing these responses will assist with answering the focal questions: How did paleoamerican colonists who were initially ignorant of local landscape ecology survive? And how did their subsistence practices shift as they learned local ecology? Related questions include: Which of the available faunal resources did early humans at Marmes exploit? In what proportions were they exploited? How were prey carcasses butchered (e.g., for immediate consumption or delayed consumption)? At what seasons of the year were species exploited (based on age at death of species with seasonally limited birth seasons)? Precisely these questions underpin the alternative hypotheses about paleoamerican subsistence. Further, learning the nature of the ecological landscape (including climate) that paleoamericans encountered and adapted to will assist with ascertaining the why of paleoamerican subsistence pursuits. Broader impacts of the research are that two to four graduate students will receive training in zooarchaeological methods. Several of them will develop their own research projects using the Marmes faunal collection. Further, the collection very likely contains human remains that will be sorted out and returned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (that administers the collection) and made available for repatriation. Finally, the value of curation of such collections (in this case, 40 years) will be demonstrated.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，R.Lee Lyman博士将评估有关北美最早的人类居民实行的生存策略的替代假设。一些考古学家认为，这些早期的群体是专门猎杀巨型哺乳动物的人，只是偶尔利用小猎物；另一些人则认为，他们是饮食通才，偶尔会利用猛犸象或野牛。以前不同研究人员发表的数据的统计分析产生了相互矛盾的结果，但所有研究人员都同意，选择正确假说的唯一方法是分析从动物群或古化石遗迹中新获得的数据。20世纪60年代，在华盛顿州东南部的马默斯岩石庇护所挖掘出合适的古生物遗骸。Marmes遗址的地层柱横跨PHT，许多动物遗骸是从1 mm的筛网中收集的，这使得这一收藏在美国西部是独一无二的。迄今为止已经研究的少量遗骸样本表明，整个收藏将由大约4500具可识别的骨骼和牙齿组成，分布在六个不同的地层组合中。随着人们对其新殖民地貌的了解，最初的古美洲人的生存实践和生存追求的转变将以精细的时间分辨率和特别是大样本被记录下来。此外，还将揭示栖息动物对环境动态PHT的古生态响应，表现为表型和分类丰度的变化。了解这些反应将有助于回答焦点问题：最初对当地景观生态一无所知的古美洲殖民者是如何生存的？随着他们学习当地的生态，他们的谋生方式发生了怎样的变化？相关问题包括：玛尔梅的早期人类利用了哪些可用的动物资源？他们被剥削的比例是多少？如何屠宰猎物的身体(例如，立即食用或延迟食用)？物种在一年中的哪些季节被开发(根据出生季节受季节限制的物种的死亡年龄)？正是这些问题支撑了有关古美洲人生存的另一种假设。此外，了解古美洲人遇到并适应的生态景观(包括气候)的性质，将有助于确定古美洲人生存追求的原因。这项研究的更广泛影响是，两到四名研究生将接受动物考古方法培训。他们中的几个人将利用Marmes动物收藏开发自己的研究项目。此外，这些收藏品很可能包含人类遗骸，这些遗骸将被分类并归还给美国陆军工程兵团(负责管理收藏品)，并可供遣返。最后，将展示这些藏品的管理价值(在这种情况下，是40年)。