Collaborative Proposal: Investigating the Subsistence Transition in Post-Lapita Fiji (2500-1500 years BP)

Julie Field，Chris鲁什和John Dudgeon将使用考古，地质考古和古生态分析来探索斐济群岛殖民化后几个世纪从海洋觅食到定居农业的转变。这项研究将确定食物生产如何以及何时在斐济史前发展，并研究这种转变如何与饮食，定居，物质文化，人口和岛屿生态的明显变化有关。这一主题与大洋洲当前的研究问题特别相关，特别是创始社会Lapita的签名元素的衰落，以及新喀里多尼亚，斐济，汤加和萨摩亚的大洋洲社会的核心组成部分的出现。到了接触时期，这些岛屿群体拥有大量人口、庞大的农业系统和等级社会，但粮食生产对这一过程的相对重要性还没有得到很好的理解，也很少有直接的研究。该小组将重点关注位于维提岛的Sigatoka山谷，并将研究用于觅食或生产食物的变量范围。研究人员将采用一种基于GIS的高分辨率追溯模型。 该模型将为几个流域内的地质考古调查提供基础，以确定自然和人为火灾的频率，并建立从森林树冠到开阔农田的景观变化图。将进行大面积的挖掘，以恢复斐济最早的居民觅食和粮食生产的证据。将利用与食品加工和消费有关的地物和人工制品的放射性碳年代测定法，编制斐济农业发展年表。该项目还将对回收的骨头进行同位素分析，以检查人类饮食，种植食物的相对重要性日益增加。斐济的研究将建立在美国考古学家和斐济博物馆之间始于1947年的合作历史之上。 实地考察和随后的实验室分析将为斐济和美国的学生提供培训和研究机会，并将与一系列针对斐济成年人和学童的教育方案相联系，这些方案强调文化资源管理和自然科学。该项目产生的报告和数据将通过斐济博物馆与当地社区分享，并在国际上发表。

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Julie Field, Chris Roos, and John Dudgeon will use archaeological, geoarchaeological, and paleoecological analyses to explore the transition from marine foraging to sedentary farming in the centuries following the colonization of the Fiji Islands. This research will determine how and when food production developed in Fijian prehistory, and examine how this transition relates to evident changes in diet, settlement, material culture, demography, and island ecology. This topic is particularly relevant to current research questions in Oceania, in particular the decline of the signature elements of the founding society, the Lapita, and the emergence of the core components of the Oceanic societies of New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. By the contact period these island groups had large populations, vast agricultural systems, and ranked societies, but the relative importance of food production to this process is not well understood and has received little direct study. The team will focus on the Sigatoka Valley, located on the island of Viti Levu, and will examine the range of variables used to forage or produce food. The researchers will employ a high-resolution retrodictive GIS-based model. This model will provide the foundation for geoarchaeological investigations within several watersheds to determine the frequency of natural and human-induced fire, and build a picture of landscape change from forest canopy to open farmland. Large areal excavations will be conducted with the goal of retrieving evidence of foraging and food production by Fiji's earliest inhabitants. Radiocarbon dating of features and artifacts related to food processing and consumption will be used to generate a chronology for agricultural development in Fiji. The project will also conduct isotopic analyses on recovered bone in order to examine human diet, the relative increasing importance of cultivated foods. Research in Fiji will build upon a history of collaboration between US archaeologists and the Fiji Museum that began in 1947. Fieldwork and subsequent laboratory analyses will provide training and research opportunities for students in Fiji and the United States, and will be connected to a series of educational programs for Fijian adults and schoolchildren that emphasizes cultural resource management and the natural sciences. Reports and data generated from this project will be shared with local communities via the Fiji Museum, and also published internationally.