Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Transitions To A Nomadic Lifestyle

来自亚利桑那大学的博士候选人Brandi Bethke将研究在美国和加拿大西北平原的史前和历史时期，马的使用在多大程度上改变了黑脚人的景观利用、野牛狩猎习惯和世界观。受北部平原丰富的狩猎采集者考古、地理空间测绘的理论和方法进步以及黑脚族传统知识的启发，这项工作为该地区的马术文化和社会提供了新的见解。贝斯克的研究采用考古学、地理信息系统（GIS）、社会历史和人种学相结合的框架，将为马对黑脚人生活方式的影响提供一个当代模型和细致入微的叙述。具体来说，这项研究将回答这样一个问题：黑脚人在多大程度上（如果有的话）成为了真正的游牧民族？总的来说，贝斯克的工作提供了一个机会来评估和更新马的历史，以及它与北部平原上游牧猎人的社会、经济和政治体系的结合，这是一个与美国共同遗产和西部扩张历史不可分割的故事。更广泛地说，这项工作将促进一种不仅在科学上合理，而且对黑脚部落成员的传统知识和实践作出反应的考古实践。今天的黑脚人提供了独特的观点，并持有重要的知识，有关文化变迁与马的引进在他们的祖先。考古学家和黑足非考古学家之间的这种合作和建设性对话将有利于考古学的学科，因为它将为解释过去和现在人类和他们驯养的动物之间的关系提供新的分析模式。贝斯克的工作将完善和扩展早期工作中开发的模型，以评估从以野牛为中心到以马为中心的生活方式的转变如何改变土地使用模式，因为黑脚人开始遵循马的习惯，而不是野牛，以他们自己的年度生存活动周期、综合仪式、劳动组织、经济和贸易。此外，虽然马的社会经济后果已经从历史的角度进行了研究，但这一转变的考古学仍然模糊不清。这项研究将把来自蒙大拿、阿尔伯塔和萨斯喀彻温省的多种考古遗址类型的位置信息与历史和人种学数据相结合，以产生一个全面的GIS数据库，然后用于分析整个黑脚地区的土地利用模式的变化，该地区不受现代地缘政治边界的限制。通过这种方式，贝斯克的研究通过将物质文化与传统知识、历史记载和科学数据结合起来，在世界畜牧业研究的框架内进行多尺度、跨国的解释，为黑脚马术过渡的动态提供了一个新的考古维度。游牧作为一种生产方式，以前从未被正式认为是北美原住民的一种生活方式。因此，该项目将为我们了解北美平原人民的狩猎和畜牧业提供新的理论和方法方法以及实质性数据。

PhD Candidate Brandi Bethke, of the University of Arizona, will examine the extent to which the adoption of the horse altered landscape uses, bison hunting practices, and worldviews of the Blackfoot during the protohistoric and historic periods in the northwestern Plains of the U.S. and Canada. Inspired by the richness of hunter-gatherer archaeology in the northern Plains, theoretical and methodological advances in geospatial mapping, and Blackfoot traditional knowledge, this work provides new insights into the region's equestrian culture and society. Employing a framework that integrates archaeology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), social history, and ethnography, Bethke's research will provide a contemporary model and nuanced narrative of the influence of the horse on Blackfoot lifeways. Specifically this research will answer the question: to what extent (if any) did the Blackfoot become true nomadic pastoralists? Overall Bethke's work provides an opportunity to evaluate and update the history of the horse and its incorporation into social, economic, and political systems of nomadic hunters on the northern Plains, a story that is integral to the United States' shared heritage and history of western expansion. More broadly, this work will promote an archaeological practice that is not only scientifically sound but also responsive to the traditional knowledge and practices of Blackfoot tribal members. Present-day Blackfoot peoples offer unique perspectives and hold significant knowledge regarding cultural change associated with the introduction of the horse among their ancestors. This collaboration and constructive dialogue between archaeologists and Blackfeet non-archaeologists will benefit the discipline of archaeology in that it will provide new modes of analysis for interpreting relationships between humans and their domesticated animals both in the past and present. Bethke's work will refine and expand models developed in earlier works in order to evaluate how the transition from a bison-centered to a horse-centered lifestyle altered land use patterns as the Blackfoot began to follow habits of horses instead of bison for their own annual cycles of subsistence activities, integrative ceremonies, labor organization, economy, and trade. Additionally, while the socio-economic consequences of the horse have been studied from a historical perspective, the archaeology of this transition remains ambiguous. This study will integrate locational information of multiple archaeological site types from Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan with historic and ethnographic data, in order to produce a comprehensive GIS database that will then be used to analyze shifts in land use patterns over the whole of Blackfoot territory that is not limited by modern geopolitical borders. In this way Bethke's research presents a new, archaeological dimension to the dynamics of the Blackfoot equestrian transition by incorporating material culture with traditional knowledge, historic accounts, and scientific data into a multi-scalar, transnational interpretation within the framework of world pastoralist studies. Pastoralism as a mode of production has never before been formally considered as a way of life experienced by Native North Americas. This project will therefore contribute new theoretical and methodological approaches as well as substantive data to our understanding of hunting and pastoralism among people of the North American Plains.