Early Agriculture and Landscape Domestication along the Middle Berbice River, Guyana

圭亚那伯比斯河中游沿线的早期农业和景观驯化

• 批准号: 1022537
• 负责人: Michael Heckenberger
• 金额: $ 10.83万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1022537&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Early; Agriculture; Landscape; Domestication; along

This project builds on preliminary research along the middle Berbice River, Guyana (NSF International Planning Grant, OISE #0923703), which revealed an extremely long sequence of settled agricultural occupations, spanning five millennia. The primary objective is to characterize initial settled agricultural occupations (ca. 5200-4700 year before present), which include one of the earliest ceramic industries in the Americas. These occupations provide the earliest examples of heavily modified 'black earth' or 'Amazonian dark earth'(ADE) soils from tropical forest regions of South America (Amazonia), typically associated semi-intensive land management. A further objective is to refine the regional chronology of agricultural occupations, including an early complex of agricultural mounds (ca. 2000-1500 BP) and large settlements reported in early historical documents (ca. 1540 and later). The project, designed as the initial phase of a multi-year, interdisciplinary study, involves archaeological survey and excavations at several occupation sites and associated agricultural earthworks within a 30 x 10 km study area, as well as related studies on paleoethnobotany, soils studies, biogeography, and ethnohistory within the study area. Archaeological perspectives on Amazonian tropical forests have changed dramatically in the past few years. Long portrayed as relatively pristine tropical forest, recent archaeology suggests novel pathways of early domestication, agriculture, and semi-intensive resource management, including large occupations sites, agricultural and village earthworks, and substantially human-modified soils (ADE). However, sites that pertain to the earliest agricultural populations, which regional specialists suggest may have appeared ca. 5,000 to 4,000 BP, are virtually unknown. This project provides an important case for the transition from incipient to more intensive agro-economies and land-use in Amazonia. It helps situate the region in broader archaeological discussions regarding the development of agriculture, settled community life, and landscape transformation in other parts of the world. The project will also refine the chronology of agricultural occupations in this little known portion of northern Amazonia, notably including periods of agricultural intensification associated with the construction of artificial farming mounds and the transitional period between late prehistoric and historic period occupations. The project contributes to broader discussions of long-term change in coupled natural-human systems in tropical forest regions, notably the effects of early agricultural populations on tropical ecology. Researchers from varied disciplines agree that planning, conservation, and local, regional, and global ecological modeling must account for the human dimensions of long term change. The findings of this study will therefore have critical implications for contemporary questions of conservation, sustainable development, biodiversity, and ecological integrity in the region. The project, which integrates archaeology, historical anthropology, and ecology, will strengthen international collaboration and provides diverse opportunities for local communities and Guyanese students, including collaboration with descendant Amerindian communities.

该项目建立在圭亚那中部贝比斯河沿岸的初步研究（NSF国际规划格兰特，OISE＃0923703），该研究揭示了一系列非常长的定居农业职业，跨越了五千年。 主要目的是描述初始定居的农业职业（在现在之前的5200-4700年），其中包括美洲最早的陶瓷行业之一。 这些职业提供了最早修改的“黑地球”或“亚马逊黑暗地球”（ADE）的土壤（亚马逊森林）（亚马逊）的土壤，通常是相关的半密集土地管理。一个进一步的目标是完善农业职业的区域年表，包括早期的农业群（约2000-1500 bp）和早期历史文件中报道的大型定居点（约1540年及以后）。 该项目设计为多年的跨学科研究的初始阶段，涉及在30 x 10 km研究领域内的多个职业地点和相关的农业土方进行考古调查和发掘，以及对研究领域内的古ethnobotany，土壤地理学研究，生物地理学和埃特诺历史的研究。 在过去的几年中，对亚马逊热带森林的考古观点发生了巨大变化。长期以来被描绘成相对原始的热带森林，最近的考古学提出了早期驯化，农业和半密集型资源管理的新途径，包括大型职业地点，农业和乡村土方工程以及实质性的人类修饰的土壤（ADE）。 但是，与最早的农业人口有关的地点，该地区专家认为这可能已经出现了。 5,000至4,000 bp实际上是未知的。 该项目为从初期到更密集的农业经济和亚马逊地区的土地使用提供了重要的案例。 它有助于在世界其他地区有关农业发展，定居社区生活和景观转变的更广泛考古讨论中。该项目还将在北部北部的鲜为人知的部分中完善农业职业的年表，特别是包括与人工农业丘的建设以及史前和历史时期和历史时期职业之间的过渡时期有关的农业强化期。 该项目有助于对热带森林地区耦合天然人类系统的长期变化进行更广泛的讨论，尤其是早期农业人口对热带生态的影响。来自不同学科的研究人员一致认为，计划，保护，地方，区域和全球生态建模必须解释长期变化的人类维度。因此，这项研究的发现将对当代的保护，可持续发展，生物多样性和生态完整性问题具有关键意义。整合考古学，历史人类学和生态学的项目将加强国际合作，并为当地社区和圭亚那学生提供各种机会，包括与后裔美洲印第安人社区的合作。