Doctoral Dissertation Research: Manihiki and Rakahanga: Persistence on the Margins of Oceania

人类殖民并改变了地球上许多最边缘的环境，包括沙漠、山脉和偏远的岛屿。在这样做的过程中，他们遇到了独特的环境挑战，并改变了他们的行为和环境本身，以适应他们的文化理想和需求。曼尼尼基和拉卡汉加是南太平洋上两个偏远且资源贫乏的环礁，为研究人类如何改造和管理边缘环境以创造长期可持续性提供了一个独特的小规模环境。研究小组将使用考古方法调查维持马尼希基和拉卡汉加人民近1000年的社会和环境转变过程，同时调查北库克群岛在东波利尼西亚殖民化中所起的作用。通过对当地助理人员进行考古方法、遗址保护原则和高度适用的技术培训，该项目还将为当地提供教育机会，同时鼓励保护当地文化资源。这项研究的完成将得出一个环礁上人类/环境相互作用的时间线，从全新世晚期海平面下降的岛屿形成，一直到历史时期（大约公元1849年）。历史生态学和弹性理论的观点将用于背景和解释这些环礁的长期居住是如何完成的。综合起来，这些努力将有助于深入了解人类构建景观和开发保护/管理实践的方式，这些方法甚至可以在最边缘的环境中维持种群。这项研究的结果将通过针对学术观众和库克群岛当地居民的演讲和出版物进行分享，以告知和激发有关景观管理的当地和全球挑战的对话。本研究从多个社会生态学角度出发。历史生态学是一种接受环境条件挑战的研究视角，同时认识到人类可以操纵景观来创造连续性和变化的长期轨迹。弹性理论提供了一个互补的观点，它将塑造景观的过程背景化为关键的社会和生态变量。将这些框架结合起来，将用于解决以下问题：人类通过什么过程和在什么时间尺度上改造和管理边缘或新兴环境，以创造有弹性的文化景观？研究小组将使用考古实地方法，包括挖掘Manihiki和Rakahanga上的居住和资源获取地区，以确定不断变化的定居模式和自然地貌变化（即园艺田的建设）。对挖掘材料的实验室分析将包括动物遗骸的动物考古学分析，以追踪当地生态和资源利用的变化，有孔虫分析，以确定环礁形成的标志，以及广泛的AMS放射性碳定年计划，以确定环礁景观轨迹事件的时间跨度。将这些方法结合起来，将揭示这些边缘环礁上形成长期可持续性的长期定居模式、资源利用和景观变化，从而回答这个研究问题。

Human populations colonized and transformed many of the Earth's most marginal environments including deserts, mountains, and remote islands. In doing so they encountered unique environmental challenges and altered their behavior and the environment itself to match their cultural ideals and needs. Manihiki and Rakahanga, two remote and resource-poor atolls in the South Pacific Ocean, provide a unique small-scale setting to investigate the ways that human populations transformed and managed marginal environments to create long-term sustainability. The research team will use archaeological methods to investigate the processes of social and environmental transformation that sustained the people of Manihiki and Rakahanga for nearly 1,000 years, while investigating the role that the northern Cook Islands played in the colonization of East Polynesia. By training local assistants in archaeological methods, principles of site preservation, and highly applicable technical skills, this project will also provide local education opportunities, while encouraging the protection of local cultural resources. The completion of this research will result in a time line for human/environmental interaction on the atolls that stretches from island formation, during late-Holocene sea level fall, through to the historic period (roughly 1849 AD). The perspectives of historical ecology and resilience theory will be used to contextualize and explain how the long-term habitation of these atolls was accomplished. Combined, these efforts will facilitate a deep-time understanding of the ways that humans construct landscapes and develop conservation/ management practices that can sustain populations in even the most marginal environments. The results of this research will be shared through presentations and publications aimed at academic audiences, as well as local Cook Islands populations to inform and inspire conversations about local and global challenges regarding landscape management. This research draws from multiple socioecological perspectives. Historical ecology, is a research perspective that accepts the challenges of environmental conditions, while recognizing that humans can manipulate landscapes to create long-term trajectories of continuity and change. Resilience theory offers a complimentary viewpoint that contextualizes the processes that shape landscapes in terms of key social and ecological variables. Combined these frameworks will be used to address the following question: Through what processes and over what time scales have humans transformed and managed marginal or emerging environments to create resilient cultural landscapes? The research team will use archaeological field methods, including the excavation of habitation and resource procurement areas on Manihiki and Rakahanga to identify changing settlement patterns and physical landform alterations (i.e., the construction of horticultural fields). Laboratory analysis of the excavated materials will include zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains to trace changes in local ecologies and resource use, foraminifera analysis to identify markers of atoll formation, and an extensive AMS radiocarbon dating program to define time spans for events in the landscape trajectories of the atolls. Combined these methods will answer this research question by revealing the long-term patterns of settlement, resource use, and landscape alteration that shaped long-term sustainability on these marginal atolls.