Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Ethnoarchaeology of Gender-Specific Foraging among Martu in Western Australia

与道格拉斯W. Brian F. Bird先生Codding将检查材料（即，考古学上可见的）残留物，这些残留物是由生活在澳大利亚西部沙漠偏远社区的土著群体Martu的性别觅食活动的变化造成的。今天，许多马图人每天都在狩猎和采集。一场典型的觅食回合开始于一个觅食队一起前往一个临时的日间营地，男人和女人通常分开行动，从事发生在不同栖息地的相互排斥的觅食活动（例如，男性可能会以山地袋鼠为目标，而女性则专注于沙蜥）。几个小时后，这群人在日间营地重新集结，烹饪、加工、分享和消耗白天获得的大部分食物。然后，这群人通常返回社区，留下当天活动的物质残余。 由于劳动中的性别差异在几乎所有人类社会中都很常见，但在其他灵长类动物中却很罕见，因此关于人类为什么会有这种差异以及它们为什么会发生变化的问题，是许多关于人类家庭形成和合作社会组织的进化起源的有影响力的争论的核心。然而，尽管性别职业很重要，但人类学家和考古学家对性别职业何时以及为何成为人类社会安排的突出特征却鲜有共识。解决这些问题需要了解考古残留物是如何代表个人的性别觅食决定。然而，由于考古记录是个人行为的积累，材料不读作为一个直接的窗口，以个人的生存实践。为了解决这个问题，这项研究将量化观察到的觅食行为和相关的材料仍然存放在每个营地。我们的目标是更好地了解觅食行为的考古后果，以及这些是如何与性别有关的资源使用的决定。通过将观测数据与其物质残留物的分析相结合，这项工作的目的是提供必要的工具，通过觅食的残留物来检查过去的性别觅食决策。通过考古学的研究，我们发现了觅食劳动的性别分工，这将直接有助于我们理解史前人类的一系列问题，从人属的出现到经济和政治的强化过程。这项研究也有可能对公众理解这些问题产生更广泛的影响。具体而言，这项工作提供了资金，以培训一名博士生和Martu研究助理，他们将在考古调查和挖掘技术方面帮助项目的持续时间。这项培训将为积极参与管理和保护其文化遗产的Martu提供重要的背景。直接与Parngurr社区学校和Parngurr社区理事会合作，这项研究的结果也将通过合作网站公布。这项工作的目的是使公众更深入地了解家庭动态及其物质表现形式的各种变化。

In collaboration with Dr. Douglas W. Bird, Mr. Brian F. Codding will examine the material (i.e., archaeologically visible) residues that result from variability in gendered foraging activities among Martu, an indigenous group who live in remote communities in Australia's Western Desert. Today, many Martu hunt and gather on a daily basis. A typical foraging bout begins with a foraging party travelling together to a temporary day-camp from which men and women usually operate separately, engaging in mutually exclusive foraging activities that occur in different habitats (e.g., men may target hill kangaroo while women focus on sand monitor lizards). After several hours, the party regroups at the day-camp to cook, process, share and consume most of the food acquired during the day. The group then typically returns to the community, leaving behind the material remains of the day's activities. Because gender differences in labor are common in almost all human societies but are rare among other primates, questions about why humans have such differences and why they vary lie at the heart of many influential arguments about the evolutionary origins of human family formation and cooperative social organization. Yet despite its importance, there is little agreement among anthropologists and archaeologists about when and why gendered occupations became prominent features of human social arrangements. Addressing these issues requires an understanding of how archaeological residues represent the gendered foraging decisions made by individuals. However, since the archaeological record is an accumulation of individual behaviors, materials do not read as a straightforward window to individual subsistence practices. In order to work towards a solution to this problem, this research will quantify observed foraging behavior and the linked material remains deposited at each camp. The goal is to gain a better understanding of the archaeological consequences of foraging behavior and how these are related to gendered decisions about resource use. By combining observational data with the analysis of its material residues, this work aims to provide the tools necessary to examine gendered foraging decisions in the past through the residues of foraging alone. Developing such clear archaeological signatures of the gender division of foraging labor will contribute directly toward understanding a wide range of issues in human prehistory, from the emergence of the genus Homo to processes of economic and political intensification.This research also has the potential to provide a broader impact on the public's understanding of these issues. Specifically, this work provides the funds to train one PhD student and Martu research assistants who will help with the duration of the project in archaeological survey and excavation techniques. This training will provide an important background for Martu who are actively involved in the management and preservation of their cultural heritage. Working directly with Parnngurr Community School and the Parnngurr Community Council, the results of this research will also be publicized through collaborative websites. In so doing, this work aims to provide a deeper public understanding of the range of variability in family dynamics and their material expressions.