Doctoral Dissertation Award: Human Adaptation To Environmental Variability

人们对海洋哺乳动物及其捕食者对环境变化的敏感性知之甚少。阿拉斯加西北海岸的伊努皮亚人今天依靠海洋哺乳动物狩猎来维持生计的很大一部分，就像他们几千年来所做的那样，但目前还不确定海洋生态系统中观察到的和预期的变化如何影响未来的粮食安全。考古学是独特的，可以提供对这个问题的看法，因为它可以考虑人类活动在很长一段时间内，并调查过去的变化如何影响海洋哺乳动物和他们的人类猎人。这项研究将研究过去2,000年来北极的环境变化是否以及如何影响海洋哺乳动物，进而影响人类的狩猎模式。该项目将根据考古遗址的动物骨骼遗骸，比较海洋条件变化及其时间与人类饮食变化的证据。这项研究还将提供长期基线数据，使人们能够更广泛地了解北极的海洋生态动态。研究结果将纳入国家公园服务公共媒体和课程，与阿拉斯加西北部的学校共享。狩猎采集者通常专注于捕获与消耗的能量相比提供最高能量回报的资源。在过去的两千年里，阿拉斯加西北部居民的饮食发生了变化，但目前还不清楚这些变化是否与当代社区所依赖的海洋哺乳动物的健康有任何联系。预计海洋环境的变化所带来的海洋哺乳动物健康的变化将推动这些转变。为了评价该声明，共同主要研究者将识别并记录动物遗骸，以评估研究期间人类饮食的变化。将通过测量同一时期考古海洋哺乳动物骨骼中存在的碳和氮同位素来重建海洋环境。现有的放射性碳年代学将对分析进行补充，并在需要时进行扩充，以确保对分析样本的年龄进行严格控制。通过比较人类饮食偏好变化与海洋环境变化的时间，这项研究将评估海洋健康对阿拉斯加沿海居民饮食的影响。这项研究的结果将为研究目前的环境变化及其对依赖海洋哺乳动物狩猎的社区的影响提供时间深度和更广泛的背景。

Little is known about the sensitivity of marine mammal species and their human predators to environmental changes. Iñupiaq people of the northwest Alaskan coast today rely on marine mammal hunting for a large portion of their subsistence as they have for millennia, but it is uncertain how observed and expected changes in the marine ecosystem might affect future food security. Archaeology is uniquely situated to provide perspective on this problem because it can consider human activity over long periods of time, and investigate how past changes affected marine mammals and their human hunters. This research will examine if and how environmental variability in the Arctic over the past 2,000 years affected marine mammals that in turn influenced human hunting patterns. This project will compare evidence for changes in marine conditions and their timing to variation in human diet based on the remains of animal bones from archaeological sites. This research will also contribute long-term baseline data enabling broader understanding of marine ecological dynamics in the Arctic. Results of the study will be incorporated into National Park Service public media and curriculum that is shared with northwest Alaska schools. Hunter-gatherers generally focus on capturing resources that provide the highest energy return compared to energy expended. The diet of northwest Alaskan peoples has varied over the past two millennia, but it is unclear if these shifts are in any way linked to the health of marine mammals, on which contemporary communities rely. It is expected that variations in marine mammal health, brought about by changes in the marine environment, should drive these shifts. To evaluate this claim, the co-PI will identify and tally animal remains to asses changes in human diet over the study period. The marine environment will be reconstructed by measuring isotopes of carbon and nitrogen present in archaeological marine mammal bones throughout the same period. The analysis is complemented by an existing radiocarbon chronology that will be augmented where needed to ensure tight control over the ages of analyzed samples. By comparing the timing of changes in human dietary preference to changes in the marine environment, this study will assess the influence of marine health on the diets of coastal Alaskans. Results of this research will provide time-depth and broader context to studies of current environmental changes and their impact on communities reliant on marine mammal hunting.