Testing models of ancient forager social and territorial organization with a strontium isoscape

在人类历史的大部分时间里，人们制定了不同的技术和社会战略，以减少不同环境中的粮食不安全风险。根据粮食资源在时间和空间上的丰富性和可预测性，预计这些战略将有系统地不同。该项目将使用化学和考古证据来调查人类狩猎-采集者如何利用灵活的社会和地区组织战略，在不同的环境条件下将风险降至最低。这项研究将揭示人类过去是如何应对多变的环境条件的，以及他们未来可能会如何应对。该项目将为美国本科生，特别是那些来自STEM领域传统上代表性较低的群体的本科生和博士后研究人员创造机会，学习化学实验室方法。它还将通过培训发展中国家的合作者在环境采样方案方面建立研究基础设施。结果将通过同行评议的出版物、会议报告和科学宣传来传播。原始数据将通过数字考古记录网站永久公开。通过对不同景观和不同发育年龄形成的人类牙齿进行化学“指纹”识别，可以重建人类居住历史和流动模式。该项目将使用多种分析化学技术，包括基于多元素和锶同位素比率的出处分析，调查大约12至6000年前农业晚期石器时代(LSA)前人类的饮食和居住史。主要目标是通过对比社会和领土组织战略来确定LSA人民如何适应不同的资源分布：领土防御以保持对丰富和可预测资源的独家访问，而扩展社会网络用于共享信息以降低不可预测环境中资源失败的风险。通过分析现代土壤、空气扬尘、植物、软体动物贝壳、哺乳动物牙齿和考古人类牙齿的样本，将改进确定人类和动物遗骸地理来源的化学方法。中东部非洲是考察环境条件、资源分布和社会-领土组织战略之间关系的理想场所。中东部非洲的环境记录表明，与东部和南部非洲相比，过去15 000年来，非洲东部和南部的资源结构更加稳定，因此没有那么明显的差异。目前，这一地区是一个漫长而紧张的旱季。在过去的干旱阶段，这个旱季可能会更长、更严重，而在更潮湿的阶段，可能会更短、更不严重。因此，这是研究资源开采和减少风险的社会和地区战略对比的重要时间和地点。这项研究的结果可能为制定人类、战略、社会和领土组织对不断变化的环境的反应的政策和预测模型提供指导。在该项目中开发的方法改进将很容易用于地球、环境和社会科学，以及法医调查、食物来源鉴定和生物保护。

For most of human history, people have developed different technological and social strategies to reduce the risk of food insecurity in different environments. These strategies are expected to differ systematically depending on the abundance and predictability of food resources in time and space. This project will use chemical and archaeological evidence to investigate how human hunter-gatherers used flexible social and territorial organization strategies to minimize risk in different environmental conditions. The research will shed light on how humans have coped with variable environmental conditions in the past, and how they may do so in the future. This project will create opportunities for American undergraduate students, especially those from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields, and postdoctoral researchers, to learn chemistry laboratory methods. It will also build research infrastructure through the training of collaborators from the developing world in environmental sampling protocols. Results will be disseminated by peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and science outreach. Primary data will be permanently publicly available through the Digital Archaeological Record website.Chemical "fingerprinting" of foods in different landscapes and human teeth formed at different developmental ages permits reconstruction of human residential histories and mobility patterns. This project will use multiple analytical chemistry techniques, including multi-elemental and strontium isotope ratio-based provenience analysis, to investigate diet and residential histories of pre-agricultural Later Stone Age (LSA) humans between approximately 12 and 6 thousand years ago. The primary objective is to determine how LSA peoples adapted to different resource distributions through contrasting social and territorial organization strategies: territorial defense to preserve exclusive access to abundant and predictable resources, versus extended social networks for sharing information to reduce risk of resource failure in unpredictable environments. Chemical methods for determining the geographic source of human and animal remains will be refined through the analysis of samples of modern soil, airborne dust, plants, mollusk shells, and mammal teeth, and archaeological human teeth. East-Central Africa is an ideal place to examine the relationships among environmental conditions, resource distributions, and socio-territorial organization strategies. Environmental records from East-Central Africa suggest more stability and thus less dramatic contrasts in resource structure during the last 15 thousand years compared to eastern and southern Africa. At present, this region has a long stressful dry season. This dry season may have been longer and more severe during past arid phases and shorter and less severe during wetter phases. Therefore, this an important time and place to investigate contrasting social and territorial strategies for resource exploitation and risk reduction. The results of this research may provide guidance for developing policies and predictive models of human strategic social and territorial organizational responses to changing environments. The methodological refinements developed in this project will be readily transferrable to the earth, environmental, and social sciences, as well as forensic investigations, food origins authentication and biological conservation.