Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Behavioral and Environmental Adaptation in Alaska and the Yukon

智人之所以能成功地在世界上最荒凉的地区定居，很大程度上是因为这个物种有能力迅速调整行为，以应对不断变化的环境。该项目旨在确定特定条件最终如何影响过去技术、贸易和饮食的变化，以建立在先前记录人类灵活性和恢复力程度的研究基础上。在特别边缘的环境中，是什么因素推动了狩猎采集者生存方式的重要变化？考古学的视角提供了一个独特的机会，通过整合跨越几个世纪、数百平方英里和多个学科的数据，来追踪人类行为与不断变化的外部社会或气候条件之间的复杂关系。以前的学术研究主要集中在史前或大规模社会时期的人类与环境的关系上，很少有研究人员调查了最近有充分记录的狩猎采集者行为变化的原因。结合阿萨巴斯坎人的观点和阿拉斯加高中生的参与，这项研究旨在分离出北美亚北极地区最近前哥伦布历史中明显而戏剧性的行为转变和随之而来的迁徙事件背后的驱动因素。密歇根大学的博士生Briana Doering将通过评估狩猎采集者如何在边缘环境中应对风险来研究人类与环境的关系。这项工作将与阿拉斯加费尔班克斯大学、科罗拉多州立大学和亚利桑那大学的研究人员合作进行。具体来说，这个合作项目将评估大规模火山爆发或人口增长是否会导致亚北极狩猎采集者技术、饮食和贸易的大规模转变，以及最终向南迁移。为了解释这些行为变化，研究小组将与阿萨巴斯坎后裔社区协商并合作，在阿拉斯加中部的四个考古遗址进行挖掘，并使用标准统计分析和新型地球化学技术研究发现的文物。然后，这些材料结果将与先前在阿拉斯加和加拿大进行的广泛的考古、气候和生态调查数据相关联，并进行区域地理空间分析。这种比较视角结合了来自史前晚期亚北极考古遗址的独特的细粒度社会和环境数据，以展示人类，他们的环境以及人类在地方和区域尺度上存在的物质痕迹之间的持久关系。因此，这项广泛适用的研究结果可以促进对其他时期和其他地区的狩猎采集者行为的理解，这些地区只有粗粒度的区域数据集可用。这项协同研究将通过比较后代社区的知识、考古材料和丰富的细粒度环境数据来阐明过去的人类行为，从而增加我们对人类总体弹性和阿萨巴斯坎生存传统的理解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Homo sapiens have successfully colonized the world's most inhospitable regions due in large part to the species' capacity to rapidly adjust behavior in response to changing circumstances. This project aims determine how specific conditions ultimately contributed to past shifts in technology, trade, and diet to build on previous research documenting the extent of human flexibility and resilience. What factors propel important changes to hunter-gatherer subsistence in particularly marginal environments? An archaeological perspective provides a singular opportunity to track the complex relationship between human behavior and shifting external social or climatic conditions by integrating data that spans centuries, hundreds of square miles, and multiple disciplines. Where previous scholarship has focused on the human-environment relationship at distant periods in prehistory or in large-scale societies, few researchers have investigated the causes of recent, well-documented behavioral changes in hunter-gatherers. Incorporating Athabaskan perspectives and engaging Alaskan high-schoolers, this research aims to isolate the driving factors behind a clear and dramatic behavioral shift and concomitant migratory event in the recent pre-Columbian history of Subarctic North America. University of Michigan doctoral student Briana Doering will study human-environment relationships by evaluating how hunter-gatherers navigate risk in marginal environments. The work will be conducted in association with researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Colorado State University, and the University of Arizona. Specifically, this collaborative project will evaluate whether a massive volcanic eruption or population growth resulted in wide-scale shifts in Subarctic hunter-gatherer technology, diet, and trade, and an ultimate southward migration. To explain these behavioral changes, the research team will conduct excavations at four archaeological sites in central Alaska in consultation and collaboration with the descendant Athabaskan community, and study the recovered artifacts using standard statistical analyses and novel geochemical techniques. These material results will then be related to extensive archaeological, climatic, and ecological data from previous investigations in Alaska and Canada with a regional geospatial analysis. This comparative perspective combines uniquely fine-grained social and environmental data from late prehistoric Subarctic archaeological sites to demonstrate the enduring relationship between humans, their environment, and the material traces of human existence at both local and regional scales. Therefore, the results of this broadly applicable research can promote an understanding of hunter-gatherer behavior at other periods and in other regions where only coarse-grained, regional datasets are available. This concerted research will increase our understanding of human resilience generally and Athabaskan subsistence traditions specifically by comparing the knowledge of the descendant community, archaeological materials, and a wealth of fine-grained environmental data to elucidate human behavior in the past.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.