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

博士论文改进奖：阿拉斯加和育空地区的行为和环境适应

• 批准号: 1830705
• 负责人: Brian Stewart
• 金额: $ 2.46万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-15 至 2020-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1830705&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Award; Behavioral

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.

智人已经成功地在世界上最不适宜居住的地区定居，这在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如何最终促成过去的技术，贸易和饮食转变，以建立在以前记录人类灵活性和适应力程度的研究基础上。什么因素促使狩猎采集者在特别是边缘环境中的生存发生重大变化？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跟踪人类行为与外部社会或气候条件变化之间的复杂关系。以前的学术研究集中在史前时期或大规模社会中的人类与环境的关系，很少有研究人员调查最近有充分记录的狩猎采集者行为变化的原因。本研究以阿萨巴斯卡人为研究对象，以阿拉斯加高中生为研究对象，旨在分离出近几年来北美亚北极地区前哥伦布时期明显而戏剧性的行为转变及其伴随的迁徙事件背后的驱动因素。密歇根大学博士生Briana Doering将通过评估狩猎采集者如何在边缘环境中导航风险来研究人类与环境的关系。这项工作将与来自阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯、科罗拉多州立大学和亚利桑那大学的研究人员联合进行。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导致了亚北极狩猎采集技术，饮食和贸易的大规模转变，以及最终的南迁。为了解释这些行为变化，研究小组将与后代阿萨巴斯卡社区协商和合作，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的地球化学技术研究恢复的文物。这些材料的结果，然后将涉及到广泛的考古，气候和生态数据，从以前的调查在阿拉斯加和加拿大的区域地理空间分析。这种比较的角度结合了独特的细粒度的社会和环境数据，从晚史前亚北极考古遗址，以证明人类之间的持久关系，他们的环境，以及人类存在的物质痕迹在地方和区域尺度。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狩猎采集行为的理解，这些地区只有粗粒度的区域数据集。这项协调一致的研究将通过比较后代社区的知识，考古材料，和丰富的，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估来支持的搜索.

项目成果

A Multiscalar Consideration of the Athabascan Migration

阿萨巴斯卡迁徙的多尺度考虑

• DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2020.34
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: American Antiquity
• 影响因子: 2.8
• 作者: Doering, Briana N.;Esdale, Julie A.;Reuther, Joshua D.;Catenacci, Senna D.
• 通讯作者: Catenacci, Senna D.