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

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Julie Field， Chris Roos和John Dudgeon将使用考古学，地质考古学和古生态学分析来探索斐济群岛殖民后几个世纪从海洋觅食到定居农业的转变。这项研究将确定粮食生产在斐济史前时期是如何以及何时发展起来的，并研究这种转变与饮食、定居、物质文化、人口和岛屿生态的明显变化之间的关系。这个主题与大洋洲当前的研究问题特别相关，特别是创始社会的标志性元素Lapita的衰落，以及新喀里多尼亚、斐济、汤加和萨摩亚等海洋社会的核心组成部分的出现。到接触时期，这些岛屿群拥有大量人口、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尚未得到很好的理解，也很少得到直接研究。该团队将重点关注位于Viti Levu岛的Sigatoka山谷，并将研究用于觅食或生产食物的变量范围。研究人员将采用基于gis的高分辨率回溯模型。该模型将为若干流域的地质考古调查提供基础，以确定自然和人为火灾的频率，并构建从森林冠层到开阔农田的景观变化图景。将进行大面积的挖掘，目的是检索斐济最早居民觅食和粮食生产的证据。与食品加工和消费有关的特征和文物的放射性碳定年法将用于编制斐济农业发展的年表。该项目还将对恢复的骨骼进行同位素分析，以检验人类饮食，即种植食品相对日益重要。在斐济的研究将建立在1947年开始的美国考古学家和斐济博物馆之间的合作历史上。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，并将与斐济成人和学童的一系列教育项目相联系，这些项目强调文化资源管理和自然科学。该项目的报告和数据将通过斐济博物馆与当地社区共享，并在国际上发布。

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.