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

该项目建立在圭亚那伯比斯河中游的初步研究基础上（NSF国际规划资助，OISE #0923703），该研究揭示了跨越五千年的极其漫长的农业定居序列。主要目的是描述最初定居的农业职业（距今约5200-4700年），其中包括美洲最早的陶瓷工业之一。这些职业提供了来自南美洲热带森林地区（亚马逊）的大量改良的“黑土”或“亚马逊黑土”（ADE）土壤的最早例子，通常与半集约化土地管理有关。进一步的目标是完善农业职业的区域年表，包括早期的农业土丘建筑群（约2000-1500 BP）和早期历史文献中报告的大型定居点（约1540年及以后）。该项目是一项多年跨学科研究的初始阶段，包括在30 x 10公里的研究区域内对几个占领地点和相关农业土方工程进行考古调查和挖掘，以及对研究区域内的古民族植物学、土壤研究、生物地理学和民族历史进行相关研究。在过去的几年里，考古学对亚马逊热带森林的看法发生了巨大的变化。长期以来被描述为相对原始的热带森林，最近的考古学表明了早期驯化，农业和半集约化资源管理的新途径，包括大型职业场所，农业和村庄土方工程，以及大量的人类改造土壤（ADE）。然而，与最早的农业人口有关的地点，区域专家认为可能出现在距今5000到4000年前，实际上是未知的。该项目为亚马逊地区从初级农业经济和土地利用向集约化农业经济和土地利用过渡提供了一个重要案例。它有助于将该地区置于有关农业发展、定居社区生活和世界其他地区景观变化的更广泛的考古讨论中。该项目还将细化这一鲜为人知的亚马逊北部地区农业职业的年表，特别是包括与人工农业土丘建设相关的农业集约化时期以及史前晚期和历史时期职业之间的过渡时期。该项目有助于更广泛地讨论热带森林地区自然-人类耦合系统的长期变化，特别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，规划、保护以及地方、区域和全球生态模型必须考虑长期变化的人类因素。因此，这项研究的结果将对该地区的保护、可持续发展、生物多样性和生态完整性等当代问题具有重要意义。该项目集考古学、历史人类学和生态学于一体，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，包括与美洲印第安人后裔社区合作。

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including an early complex of agricultural mounds (ca. 2000-1500 BP) and large settlements reported in early historical documents (ca. 1540 and later).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.