Collaborative Research: The Initial Peopling and Settlement of Eastern Newfoundland

这个项目是对文化和生态因素的考古研究，这些因素促成了海洋古代人对纽芬兰的殖民和定居。海上古代人（约公元前6000年-公元前1000年）是第一批在北美亚北极东部和北极地区开拓殖民地的人。他们创造了一种生活方式，使他们能够成功地占领纽芬兰和拉布拉多的整个海岸和近内陆数千年，并与遍布北美东北部的同期文化保持着联系。然而，我们对他们最初在该地区的定居、他们早期的社会组织以及这些过程受到生态因素影响的方式仍然知之甚少。这项研究的目的是在北美东北部人口的大背景下研究纽芬兰的最初定居，以及文化和环境的历史进程在更广泛的框架中所起的作用。这将包括对纽芬兰早期海事古物遗址的新考古发掘，以及对整个地区现有海事古物藏品的调查和分析。它还将检查生态数据，如植物和动物遗骸，以评估环境变化在亚北极东部最初的占领中所起的更广泛作用，以及早期文化适应如何在北部沿海和岛屿生态系统中发展。这个项目是专业考古学家、研究生和本科生的国际合作。本科生的培养和教育是这个项目的重要组成部分。此外，项目成员将继续与当地社区合作，发展与本研究相关的考古遗址和文化遗产相关的经济和保护倡议，并为该地区的学生和社区成员创造教育机会。这项研究将对我们理解人类如何以及何时首次定居北美最东部地区，以及更广泛的北部海岸和岛屿具有广泛的意义。人类最早的迁徙是一个复杂的、互动的、动态的历史过程。在北美，殖民过程通常被概括为进化的观点，认为人类只是对上一个冰河时代结束时新出现的景观和资源所提供的生态机会作出反应。尽管北美北部的大部分地区直到中全新世才被殖民，但它也经常被框定为仅仅是古印第安人的过程，并没有延伸到全新世。关于纽芬兰岛及其周围的古代扩张的新的考古田野调查和收集分析将为该地区以及其他北极和亚北极沿海地区的人类殖民提供更大的模型。这包括在大陆另一边的北美最初的人类，以及北部海岸和岛屿在这一过程中所起的作用。它还将帮助我们更好地了解古人类与他们的环境之间的相互作用，以及他们在未知的沿海和岛屿景观中采用的适应策略，以及他们对这些环境的相对影响。为了解决这些问题，研究小组将调查和确定现存藏品的日期，以微调纽芬兰最初殖民化过程的时间顺序。他们还将在纽芬兰东部的斯托克湾（Stock Cove）和斯托克湾西（Stock Cove West）遗址进行新的挖掘，在那里发现了海洋古物沉积物，从地层上看，这些沉积物与他们最早在该地区的活动有关，并发现了岛上古代人建筑的第一个证据。这将通过一系列新的日期和对从这些挖掘中恢复的材料遗骸的分析来评估。此外，新的地球物理调查将采用探地雷达和磁强计来定位新的古代沉积物，以帮助集中挖掘和非侵入性评估其他考古沉积物，这些沉积物可以解决纽芬兰最早的定居点问题。最后，将收集和分析生态数据（如昆虫、动物遗骸、大型植物），以帮助重建可能影响和影响海洋古代人居住和定居过程的环境模式。该项目将产生更广泛的影响，包括：1)首次挖掘和分析纽芬兰岛上的海上古建筑；2)对亚北极/北极东部地区古代社会组织和聚落的重要数据贡献；3)获取关键环境数据，这些数据将有助于评估整个全新世的环境变化，并可能为制定有关减轻环境变化和经济影响的现代政策提供信息（例如，海洋哺乳动物狩猎、捕捞配额、野生动物保护、海冰范围、海岸侵蚀）；4)本科生考古领域和实验方法的培养；5)向学术界和公众传播我们的成果；6)加强与纽芬兰和拉布拉多当地社区、地区博物馆和其他利益相关方就其遗产和文化资源的互动，包括公开讲座和为这些社区开发教育工具（如社交媒体、历史标志、小册子、小册子）。

This project is an archaeological examination of the cultural and ecological factors that contributed to the colonization and settlement of Newfoundland by Maritime Archaic peoples. The Maritime Archaic peoples (ca. 6,000 B.C.-1,000 B.C.) were the first to colonize the Eastern Subarctic and Arctic of North America. They created a way of life that allowed them to successfully occupy the entire coast and near interior of Newfoundland and Labrador for thousands of years, and maintain relationships with contemporaneous cultures that stretched throughout much of northeastern North America. However, we still know very little about their initial settlement of the region, their early social organization, and the ways these processes were affected by ecological factors. The aim of this research is to examine the initial settlement of Newfoundland within the larger context of the peopling of northeastern North America and the roles that historical processes, both cultural and environmental, played in that broader framework. This will include new archaeological excavations at early Maritime Archaic sites in Newfoundland, as well as investigation and analysis of existing Maritime Archaic artifact collections from throughout the region. It will also examine ecological data, such as plant and animal remains, to assess the wider role of environmental change in the initial occupation of the eastern Subarctic and how early cultural adaptations developed within northern coastal and island ecosystems. This project is an international collaboration of professional archaeologists, graduate students, and undergraduates. The training and education of undergraduate students is a critical component of this project. Moreover, project members will continue to collaborate with local communities to develop economic and preservation initiatives related to the archaeological sites and cultural heritage associated with this research and to create educational opportunities for students and community members in the region. This research will have extensive implications for our understanding of how and when people first settled the easternmost region of North America, and northern coasts and islands more generally. The earliest human migration onto any landscape is a complex, interactive, and dynamic historical process. In North America, the colonization process is often generalized within an evolutionary perspective that envisions humans simply reacting to ecological opportunities offered by newly available landscapes and resources at the end of the last Ice Age. It is also often framed as solely a Paleoindian process that did not extend far into the Holocene, despite the fact that large portions of northern North America were not colonized until the Middle Holocene. New archaeological fieldwork and collections analysis concerning the Archaic expansion onto and around the island of Newfoundland will inform larger models of human colonization within the region, as well as in other Arctic and Subarctic coastal zones. This includes the initial peopling of North America on the other side of the continent and the role that northern coasts and islands played in that process. It will also help us better understand the interaction between Archaic people and their environment and the adaptation strategies they employed in unknown coastal and island landscapes, as well as the relative impact they had on those environments. To address these issues the research team will survey and date extant collections to fine-tune the chronological resolution of the initial colonization processes of Newfoundland. They will also conduct new excavations at the Stock Cove and Stock Cove West sites in eastern Newfoundland where Maritime Archaic deposits have been found that appear to stratigraphically correlate to their earliest occupations of the region and that have the first evidence of architecture by Archaic peoples on the island. This will be assessed with a suite of new dates and analyses of material remains recovered from those excavations. Additionally, new geophysical surveys employing ground penetrating radar and magnetometry will be conducted to locate new Archaic deposits to help focus the excavations and noninvasively assess other archaeological deposits that could address the earliest settlement of Newfoundland. Finally, ecological data (e.g. insects, faunal remains, macrobotanicals) will be collected and analyzed to help reconstruct environmental patterns that may have impacted and influenced the peopling and settlement process by the Maritime Archaic. This project will have broader impacts that include: 1) the first excavation and analysis of a Maritime Archaic structure on the island of Newfoundland; 2) the contribution of important data to our understanding of Archaic social organization and settlement in the eastern Subarctic/Arctic; 3) obtaining key environmental data that will assist with the assessment of environmental change throughout the Holocene and may inform the development of modern policies regarding the mitigation of environmental change and economic impacts (e.g., sea mammal hunting, fishing quotas, wildlife conservation, sea ice extent, coastal erosion); 4) the training of undergraduate students in archaeological field and laboratory methods; 5) international dissemination of our results to both academic and public audiences, and; 6) increased interaction with local communities, regional museums, and other interested parties within Newfoundland and Labrador concerning their heritage and cultural resources, including public lectures and the development of educational tools (e.g., social media, historical markers, pamphlets, booklets) for those communities.