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

在国家科学基金会的支持下，朱莉·菲尔德博士、克里斯·鲁斯博士和约翰·道金博士将利用考古、地质考古和古生态分析，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。这项研究将确定斐济史前食物生产的发展方式和时间，并研究这种转变与饮食、聚落、物质文化、人口结构和岛屿生态的明显变化之间的关系。这一专题与大洋洲目前的研究问题特别相关，特别是创始社会的标志性因素拉皮塔的衰落，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。在接触期间，这些岛群拥有庞大的人口、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，也没有得到多少直接研究。该小组将把重点放在位于维提列武岛上的Sigatoka山谷，并将检查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地理信息系统的高分辨率回溯模型。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，并构建从森林树冠到开阔农田的景观变化图景。将进行大规模的区域挖掘，目的是找回斐济最早居民觅食和食物生产的证据。将利用与食品加工和消费有关的特征和手工艺品的放射性碳测年，为斐济的农业发展编制年表。该项目还将对回收的骨骼进行同位素分析，以检查人类饮食，即种植食品的相对重要性。斐济的研究将建立在美国考古学家和斐济博物馆始于1947年的合作历史的基础上。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，并将与一系列强调文化资源管理和自然科学的斐济成年人和学童教育方案相联系。该项目产生的报告和数据将通过斐济博物馆与当地社区共享，并在国际上出版。

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.