Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Investigating The Effect Of Environmental Variability On Mobility And Territorial Behavior

领土是理解人类社会的基础，因为它涉及到财产权，土地保有权，战争和社会经济不平等的出现。然而，人类社会并不总是领土性的，关于领土性出现的时间和条件仍然存在许多问题。只有通过考古学的学科，社会科学家才能评估数千年来领土的出现和变化。 人类学家的理论认为，领土出现作为一个权衡利益和风险之间的捍卫土地使用经济防御模型（EDM）。EDM将通过使用地球化学方法研究德克萨斯州沿海平原的考古材料进行评估。该项目涉及与查佩尔山的北卡罗来纳州大学、得克萨斯州公园和野生动物部以及圣安东尼奥的得克萨斯大学考古研究中心的合作。本研究有助于培养一名少数民族研究生的考古学和地球化学方法。它还将有助于一个公开的地球化学数据集，这将是有用的多个学科，包括地质学，生态学以及archaeology.The EDM考虑资源密度，领土大小和防御模式，以确定领土出现的条件。虽然这一模式已有效地理解不同类型的领土的民族志的例子，它还没有被系统地在考古学背景下进行评估。本项目通过研究德克萨斯州沿海平原（TCP）晚白垩世时期（公元前2000年至公元800年）的领土性来解决这一问题。晚白垩世是气候改善的时期，在这一时期，人口密度达到顶峰，因为狩猎采集者利用淡水资源，白尾鹿，山核桃和块茎。 他们回到中心地点举行仪式并埋葬死者，但他们的人口流动规模不详。研究人员认为，随着TCP上狩猎采集人口的增加，流动性下降，这可能导致了领土的增加。研究人员将利用锶（87 Sr/86 Sr）稳定同位素分析来评估领土的存在。 作为一种生态示踪剂，人骨中的87 Sr/86 Sr水平可能会将个体与特定位置联系起来，因此可以推断领土。将测量来自Loma Sandia考古遗址的50多个个体的牙釉质的87 Sr/86 Sr。 此外，87 Sr/86 Sr的生物利用度从七个地质区的TCP将通过现代动物样本的检查进行评估。将对这些数据集进行分析，以评估人类与特定地点联系的程度。该项目将有助于对经济防御模型进行严格评估，并促进我们对领土出现的原因和条件的理解。

Territoriality is fundamental to understanding human societies as it relates to the emergence of property rights, land tenure, warfare, and socioeconomic inequalities. However human societies have not always been territorial and many questions remain as to the timing and conditions under which territoriality emerges. It is only through the discipline of archaeology can social scientists evaluate the emergence of and changes in territoriality across thousands of years. Anthropologists have theorized that territoriality emerges as a trade-off between benefits and risks of defending land using the Economic Defensibility Model (EDM). The EDM will be evaluated through the study of archaeological materials from the Texas Coastal Plain using geochemical methods. This project involves collaboration with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio. This research contributes to the training of a minority graduate student in archaeological and geochemical methods. It will also contribute to a publicly available geochemical dataset that will be useful to multiple disciplines, including geology, ecology as well as archaeology.The EDM considers resource density, territory size, and modes of defense to posit the conditions under which territoriality emerges. While this model has been effective in understanding ethnographic examples of different types of territoriality, it has yet to be systematically evaluated in archaeological contexts. This project addresses this gap by examining territoriality during the Late Archaic period (2000 BC-AD 800) on the Texas Coastal Plain (TCP). The Late Archaic was a period of climatic amelioration and during this point in time population density peaked as hunter-gatherers made use of freshwater resources, white-tail deer, pecans, and tubers. They returned to central locations for rituals and to bury their dead however, the scale of their population movements is unknown. Researchers argue that as hunter-gatherer populations on the TCP increased, there was a decline in mobility that may have led to increasing territoriality. The investigators will utilize strontium (87Sr/86Sr) stable isotope analysis to evaluate the presence of territoriality. As an ecological tracer, 87Sr/86Sr levels in human bone can potentially tie individuals to particular locations and therefore allow inferences regarding territoriality. The 87Sr/86Sr of tooth enamel of over 50 individuals from the archaeological site of Loma Sandia will be measured. In addition, the bioavailability of 87Sr/86Sr from seven geologic regions in the TCP will be evaluated through examination of modern faunal samples. These datasets will be analyzed to evaluate the degree that humans are tied to particular locations. This project will contribute to the rigorous assessment of the Economic Defensibility Model and advance our understanding of the causes and conditions for the emergence of territoriality.