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。Manihiki和Rakahanga是南太平洋两个偏远且资源贫乏的环礁，提供了一个独特的小规模环境，以调查人类如何改变和管理边缘环境，以创造长期的可持续性。研究小组将利用考古学方法调查社会和环境转型的过程，这些过程使Manihiki和Rakahanga的人民持续了近1,000年，同时调查北方库克群岛在东波利尼西亚殖民化中所发挥的作用。通过培训当地助理人员掌握考古方法、遗址保护原则和高度适用的技术技能，该项目还将提供当地教育机会，同时鼓励保护当地文化资源。这项研究的完成将导致环礁上人类/环境相互作用的时间线，从岛屿形成，晚全新世海平面下降期间，通过历史时期（约公元1849年）。历史生态学和复原力理论的观点将被用来说明这些环礁的长期居住是如何实现的。结合起来，这些努力将有助于深入了解人类构建景观的方式，并制定保护/管理措施，即使在最边缘的环境中也能维持人口。这项研究的结果将通过针对学术界受众的演讲和出版物以及库克群岛当地居民分享，以告知和激发有关景观管理的当地和全球挑战的对话。这项研究从多个社会生态学角度进行。历史生态学是一种研究视角，它接受环境条件的挑战，同时认识到人类可以操纵景观，创造长期的连续性和变化轨迹。复原力理论提供了一个互补的观点，将塑造景观的过程置于关键社会和生态变量的背景中。结合这些框架将被用来解决以下问题：通过什么样的过程和在什么样的时间尺度上，人类改造和管理边缘或新兴的环境，创造弹性的文化景观？研究小组将使用考古实地方法，包括对Manihiki和Rakahanga的居住和资源采购区进行挖掘，以确定不断变化的定居模式和物理地貌变化（即，园艺场的建设）。对挖掘物的实验室分析将包括对动物遗骸进行动物考古学分析，以追踪当地生态和资源利用的变化，进行有孔虫分析，以确定环礁形成的标志，并进行广泛的AMS放射性碳测年方案，以确定环礁地貌轨迹中事件的时间跨度。结合这些方法将回答这个研究问题，揭示了长期的定居模式，资源利用和景观改造，塑造了这些边缘环礁的长期可持续性。

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.