Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Interaction of Long Term Canal Irrigation and Wetland Development

博士论文改进奖：长期运河灌溉与湿地开发的相互作用

• 批准号: 1665525
• 负责人: Vance Holliday
• 金额: $ 2.28万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1665525&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Award; Interaction

The archaeological study of traditional Native American agricultural techniques is essential for the evaluation of long-term land use because it allows for the examination of environmental change at the time scales necessary to test for sustainability. The earliest farmers on the floodplains of the Sonoran Desert used careful planning, group cooperation, and experimentation in the massive reconfiguration of the natural environment for agricultural purposes. The diversity in size and complexity of these early farming communities requires examination of the specific factors that favored the significant investment in landscape modification in order to understand the development of these practices. The examination of local environmental conditions and their relationship to the timing of agricultural practices is key in understanding the regional development and demise of early earthen irrigation canals. This information will contribute to the growing body of knowledge of sustainable earthen irrigation systems, an agricultural technology commonly used in arid environments today. Results from this interdisciplinary research have international impacts in earth science, archaeology, and sustainable agriculture. This project supports student training in fieldwork, research, and specialized laboratory techniques for women and underrepresented groups and is a component of a twenty-year collaboration between the University of Arizona and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. This dissertation research will investigate the earliest agricultural technology in the Southwest United States/Northwest Mexico region and evaluate local environmental impacts to determine when and why this technology was developed and subsequently abandoned. Dr. Vance Holliday and Rachel Cajigas from the University of Arizona will use high-precision dating techniques combined with environmental data to determine the timing of early agricultural practices and the relationship to floodplain conditions at the La Playa site in Sonora, Mexico. This site has important implications for the understanding of the development of agricultural techniques because it is the single largest Early Agricultural Period (2100 B.C.-A.D. 50) site in the greater Southwest. Modern erosion is actively destroying large portions of the archaeological site, highlighting the urgent need for study. This research will test the hypothesis that canal irrigation created a wetland environment, eventually leading to unstable depositional conditions. These unstable conditions may have contributed to social reorganization and abandonment of irrigation technology. Radiocarbon and Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating methods will be used to determine the timing of canal use and abandonment. These data will be compared with sedimentological and soils data to characterize floodplain conditions throughout the Early Agricultural period. The results from this study will advance the understanding of early agricultural techniques in arid environments and contribute to a comprehensive chronology of the archaeological site within the greater context of the origins of early agriculture in the Southwest U.S./Northwest Mexico.

美国原住民农业技术的档案研究对于评估长期土地使用至关重要，因为它可以在测试可持续性所需的时间尺度上检查环境变化。索诺兰沙漠洪泛区最早的农民在自然环境中进行了仔细的计划，团体协调和实验，用于农业目的。这些早期农业社区的规模和复杂性的多样性需要检查有利于对景观修改进行大量投资的特定因素，以了解这些实践的发展。检查当地环境条件及其与农业实践时机的关系是理解区域发展和早期泥土灌溉管的灭亡的关键。该信息将有助于日益增长的可持续陶艺灌溉系统知识，这是当今干旱环境中常用的农业技术。这项跨学科研究的结果对地球科学，考古学和可持续农业产生了国际影响。该项目支持针对妇女和代表性不足的妇女的野外工作，研究和专业实验室技术培训，并且是亚利桑那大学和墨西哥大学和墨西哥研究所之间二十年合作的组成部分。这项论文研究将调查美国西南部/墨西哥西北地区最早的农业技术，并评估当地的环境影响，以确定何时以及为什么开发该技术并随后被放弃。亚利桑那大学的万斯·霍利迪（Vance Holliday）和雷切尔·卡吉加斯（Rachel Cajigas）将使用高精度约会技术与环境数据相结合，以确定早期农业实践的时机以及墨西哥索诺拉（Sonora）La Playa Site的洪泛区条件的关系。该站点对了解农业技术的发展具有重要意义，因为它是大西南部地区最大的早期农业时期（公元前2100年 - 公元前50年）。现代侵蚀正在积极摧毁考古遗址的大部分地区，强调了迫切需要学习的需求。这项研究将检验以下假设，即运河灌溉创造了湿地环境，最终导致了不稳定的沉积条件。这些不稳定的条件可能有助于社会重组和放弃灌溉技术。放射性碳和光刺激的发光约定方法将用于确定运河使用和放弃的时间。这些数据将与沉积和土壤数据进行比较，以表征整个农业早期的洪泛区条件。这项研究的结果将提高对干旱环境中早期农业技术的理解，并在墨西哥西南部早期农业的起源的更大背景下为考古遗址的全面年代表做出了贡献。