Hunter-Gatherer Social Behavior during the North American Pleistocene

史密森学会的约瑟夫·金格里奇博士将探索美洲狩猎采集者群体的社会互动。虽然考古学家已经能够在美国找到可追溯到13000多年前的露营地，但我们对第一批居住在北美的人是如何生活的知之甚少。宾夕法尼亚州的肖尼-米宁克是北美最古老、保存最完好的考古遗址之一。这个网站可以让我们研究早期美国人的社会互动和生活方式，这在其他同龄的网站上是很少有的。该遗址文物的空间分布数据将用于建立理论和方法模型，以帮助更好地解释世界各地的其他狩猎采集者遗址。从这项工作中获得的信息，将该遗址置于更广泛的主题背景中，将用于提名该遗址为国家历史地标。该遗址目前已被列入国家史迹名录。该项目还注重教学，通过史密森尼博物馆培训学生并为本科生提供研究经验。美国的实习计划。这些目标将通过详细的空间分析和对18000个映射工件的重新研究来实现。民族志研究已经证明了利用空间数据来检验狩猎采集者行为和社会互动的效用。本研究将探讨：1)通过人工制品的空间聚类来构建场地结构和组织；2)通过人工制品的使用磨损和对石器生产中制造碎片的研究来构建特定工作区域的功能；3)通过人工制品的改装和减少碎片来连接个体空间单元的场地内社会互动；4)基于外来原材料分布、工作区域之间的联系和间隔人工制品集群的场地外社会互动。这项研究意义重大，因为很少有第一批美国遗址成为详细的遗址内部空间研究的焦点。由于民族志学家观察到很少有高度移动的狩猎采集者使用石器，生活在中纬度人口稀少的地区，因此该项目提供了一个机会，可以在大空间尺度上研究史前狩猎采集者遗址，并测试考古和民族考古记录之间的关系。石器改造模式、孤立的工作区域和整体空间模式将通过废弃的人工制品为人类行为的表现方式提供新的见解。在这方面，这项研究提供了一个有价值的数据集，未来的社会组织比较研究可以从中提取，以检查过去的人类行为。在这个项目中编译和分析的考古空间数据将通过史密森学会在线访问。

Dr. Joseph Gingerich of the Smithsonian Institution will explore social interaction among hunter-gatherer populations in the Americas. While archaeologists have been able to find campsites that date to more than 13,000 years ago in the United States, we know very little about how the first people who inhabited North America lived. Shawnee-Minisink in Pennsylvania is one the oldest and best preserved archaeological sites in North America. This site allows us to examine early American social interaction and ways of life, which are rarely available at other sites of the same age. Data on the spatial distribution of artifacts from this site will be used to develop theoretical and methodological models to help better interpret other hunter-gatherer sites throughout the world. Information from this work, which places the site into a broader thematic context, will be used to nominate the site as a National Historic Landmark. The site currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The project also has pedagogical focus in training students and providing undergraduates with research experiences through the Smithsonian?s internship program.These goals will be achieved through a detailed spatial analysis and refit study of 18,000 mapped artifacts. Ethnographic research has demonstrated the utility of using spatial data to examine hunter-gatherer behavior and social interactions. This research will examine: 1) site structure and organization through the spatial clustering of artifacts, 2) the function of specific work areas through artifact use-wear and the study of manufacturing debris from stone tool production, 3) intra-site social interaction by linking individual spatial units through the refitting of artifacts and reduction debris, and 4) extra-site social interaction based on the distribution of exotic raw materials, links between work areas, and the spacing artifact clusters. This study is significant because few first American sites have been the focus of a detailed intra-site spatial study. As ethnographers have observed few highly mobile hunter-gatherer groups using stone tools and living on sparsely populated landscapes at middle latitudes, this project provides an opportunity to examine a prehistoric hunter-gatherer site at a large spatial scale and test relationships between the archaeological and ethnoarchaeological records. Lithic refitting patterns, isolated work areas, and overall spatial patterning will provide new insights into the way human behavior manifests itself through discarded artifacts. In this respect, this research provides a valuable dataset from which future comparative studies of social organization can be drawn to examine past human behavior. Archaeological spatial data compiled and analyzed during this project will be accessible online through the Smithsonian Institution.