Collaborative Research: The Initial Peopling and Settlement of Eastern Newfoundland

该项目是对促使古代海洋民族殖民和定居纽芬兰的文化和生态因素的考古研究。海上古人(公元前6,000-1,000年)是第一批在北美洲的东亚北极区和北极地区殖民的生物。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内陆附近数千年，并与横跨北美东北部大部分地区的同时代文化保持联系。然而，我们仍然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如何受到生态因素的影响知之甚少。这项研究的目的是在北美东北部人口的更大背景下考察纽芬兰最初的定居点，以及历史进程，包括文化和环境，在这一更广泛的框架中所起的作用。这将包括对纽芬兰早期海洋古迹进行新的考古发掘，以及对整个区域现有的海洋古代文物收藏进行调查和分析。它还将审查生态数据，如植物和动物遗骸，以评估环境变化在最初占领东部亚洲区中的更广泛作用，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、研究生和本科生之间的国际合作。本科生的培养和教育是这一工程的重要组成部分。此外，项目成员将继续与当地社区合作，制定与这项研究相关的考古遗址和文化遗产的经济和保护举措，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们如何以及何时首次定居北美最东端地区以及更广泛的北部海岸和岛屿具有广泛的意义。人类最早迁徙到任何景观上都是一个复杂、互动和动态的历史过程。在北美，殖民过程通常是从进化的角度来概括的，设想人类只是对上一个冰河时代结束时新获得的景观和资源提供的生态机会做出反应。尽管北美北部的大部分地区直到中全新世才被殖民，但它也经常被认为是一个纯粹的古印度过程，并没有延伸到全新世。新的考古田野调查和关于纽芬兰岛及其周围古代扩张的收藏品分析将为该地区以及其他北极和亚洲区沿海地区的人类殖民模式提供更大的信息。这包括北美大陆另一端最初的人口迁移，以及北部海岸和岛屿在这一过程中所发挥的作用。它还将帮助我们更好地了解古代人与其环境之间的互动，以及他们在未知的沿海和岛屿景观中采取的适应策略，以及他们对这些环境的相对影响。为了解决这些问题，研究小组将对现存的收藏品进行调查和年代测定，以微调纽芬兰最初殖民过程的时间顺序。他们还将在纽芬兰东部的斯托克湾和斯托克湾西部遗址进行新的挖掘，在那里发现了似乎与他们在该地区的早期占领相关联的海洋古迹，并首次有证据表明该岛上的古代人建造了建筑。将通过一系列新的日期和对从这些挖掘中发现的材料遗骸的分析来评估这一点。此外，将进行新的地球物理调查，采用探地雷达和磁力测量，以确定新的古代矿藏，以帮助重点挖掘，并非侵入性地评估其他考古矿藏，这些矿藏可能涉及纽芬兰最早的定居点。最后，将收集和分析生态数据(例如昆虫、动物遗骸、大型植物)，以帮助重建可能影响和影响海洋古生物的人类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洋古代结构；2)重要数据对我们了解亚北极东部古代社会组织和聚落的贡献；3)获得关键的环境数据，这些数据将有助于评估整个全新世的环境变化，并可能为制定关于减轻环境变化和经济影响的现代政策(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)提供信息；4)对本科生进行考古领域和实验室方法方面的培训；5)在国际上向学术和公众传播我们的成果；6)加强与当地社区、地区博物馆和纽芬兰和拉布拉多其他有关方面关于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.