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。预计这些战略将根据粮食资源在时间和空间上的丰富程度和可预测性而有系统地有所不同。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使用灵活的社会和领土组织策略，以最大限度地减少不同环境条件下的风险。这项研究将揭示人类在过去如何应对多变的环境条件，以及他们在未来如何做到这一点。该项目将为美国本科生，特别是那些传统上在STEM领域代表性不足的群体和博士后研究人员创造学习化学实验室方法的机会。 它还将通过对发展中世界的合作者进行环境取样规程方面的培训，建立研究基础设施。研究结果将通过同行评审的出版物、会议报告和科学宣传进行传播。原始数据将通过数字考古记录网站永久公开，对不同地貌的食物和不同发育年龄的人类牙齿进行化学“指纹”，可以重建人类居住历史和移动模式。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值的种源分析，以调查大约12000年至6000年前的前农业晚期石器时代（LSA）人类的饮食和居住历史。 主要目标是确定如何适应不同的资源分布，通过对比社会和领土的组织策略：领土防御，以保持独家访问丰富的和可预测的资源，与扩展的社交网络共享信息，以减少在不可预测的环境中的资源失败的风险。 确定人类和动物遗骸地理来源的化学方法将通过分析现代土壤、空气中的灰尘、植物、软体动物壳和哺乳动物牙齿以及考古人类牙齿的样本得到改进。中东部非洲是研究环境条件、资源分布和社会地域组织战略之间关系的理想场所。与东非和南部非洲相比，东非-中非的环境记录表明，在过去的15000年中，资源结构更加稳定，因此差异较小。目前，该地区有一个漫长而紧张的旱季。在过去的干旱阶段，旱季可能更长，更严重，而在湿润阶段，旱季可能更短，更不严重。因此，这是一个重要的时间和地点，以调查对比社会和地区的战略，资源开发和减少风险。这项研究的结果可能会提供指导发展的政策和预测模型的人类战略社会和领土组织的反应不断变化的环境。在这个项目中开发的方法学改进将很容易转移到地球，环境和社会科学，以及法医调查，食品来源认证和生物保护。

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.