Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Transitions To A Nomadic Lifestyle

亚利桑那大学的博士生Brandi Bethke将研究这种马的采用在多大程度上改变了美国和加拿大西北部平原史前和历史时期的景观用途、野牛狩猎做法和黑脚人的世界观。受北部平原丰富的狩猎采集考古学、地理空间测绘理论和方法进步以及黑脚传统知识的启发，这项工作为该地区的马术文化和社会提供了新的见解。利用一个整合了考古学、地理信息系统(GIS)、社会史和人种学的框架，贝斯克的研究将提供一个当代模型和关于马对黑脚怪生活方式的影响的细微差别的叙述。具体地说，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)成为真正的游牧牧民？总体而言，贝斯克的工作提供了一个机会来评估和更新马匹的历史，以及它融入北部平原游牧猎人的社会、经济和政治系统中的历史，这是美国共同的遗产和西部扩张历史不可或缺的故事。更广泛地说，这项工作将促进一种考古实践，不仅科学上合理，而且对黑脚部落成员的传统知识和做法做出反应。今天的黑脚族提供了独特的视角，并掌握着与他们祖先中引入马相关的文化变化的重要知识。考古学家和非考古学家之间的这种合作和建设性的对话将有利于考古学学科，因为它将为解释过去和现在人类与其驯养动物之间的关系提供新的分析模式。贝斯克的工作将改进和扩展早期工作中开发的模型，以评估从以野牛为中心的生活方式向以马为中心的生活方式的转变如何改变土地利用模式，因为黑脚人开始遵循马的习性，而不是野牛的习性，用于他们自己的年度生存活动、综合仪式、劳工组织、经济和贸易周期。此外，虽然已经从历史的角度研究了马匹的社会经济后果，但这种转变的考古学仍然含糊不清。这项研究将把蒙大拿州、艾伯塔省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结合起来，以产生一个全面的地理信息系统数据库，然后用于分析整个黑脚区土地利用模式的变化，不受现代地缘政治边界的限制。通过这种方式，Bethke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到世界牧民研究框架内的多标度、跨国解释中，为黑脚马术转型的动态提供了一个新的考古学维度。牧业作为一种生产方式，以前从未被正式认为是北美土著所经历的一种生活方式。因此，该项目将为我们了解北美平原人民的狩猎和牧业提供新的理论和方法方法以及大量数据。

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.