Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Tropical Forest Mobility and Subsistence

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Under the direction of Dr. Michael E. Smith of Arizona State University, Mr. Timothy Dennehy, will conduct research to address a central anthropological question: how do human societies change as they transition from foraging to agriculture? The origin of agriculture is one of the most heavily researched topics in the study of human prehistory, and much is known about the first people to independently adopt farming in each area of the world. Yet comparatively little is known about the pre-agricultural groups that occupied these same landscapes before farming arose. This hampers understanding of both domestication processes as well as the changes to human society that accompanied them. By analyzing multiple lines of evidence derived from the stone artifacts (lithics) from three sites in the Lowland Maya region of Mesoamerica, this project will contribute greatly to understanding of how human groups transition from a mobile hunting and gathering lifestyle to a more sedentary one focused on food production. This project also works cooperatively with descendant Maya communities in Belize, thus contributing to the training and education of an ethnic group underrepresented in the STEM fields.Mr. Dennehy will examine how tropical forest foragers changed their mobility strategies over time in response to an environment that they themselves were altering through their manipulation of forest resources. The term "mobility strategy" here refers to the number of moves made by a group in a given year. On one end of the spectrum, a Residential Mobility Strategy entails many small moves in which the entire group sets up a new camp every few days. On the other end, a Logistical Mobility Strategy entails fewer residential moves but a greater number of small task-oriented (i.e. logistical) moves, wherein specialized groups of foragers undertake long-range trips to bring vital resources back to a central camp. Modern-day tropical forest groups that rely solely on wild resources tend to practice the former strategy; other modern-day groups who more extensively manipulate their environments and cultivate resources tend practice the latter. These two mobility strategies affect the amount of raw material available for stone tool production; in turn, raw material availability impacts several lithic traits, making this project's lithic analysis one of the only ways to indirectly assess mobility strategies. The rockshelters that are the focus of this study contain deposits that date from 8000-900 B.C., and cover the late Paleoindian/Early Archaic transition through the Late Archaic/Middle Preclassic transition, a record whose time-depth and completeness is unparalleled in the Maya world. This record is anchored at one end by the early hunter-gatherer societies who preceded domestication, and on the other by fully agricultural Maya groups; thus, it will provide evidence of the full spectrum of subsistence strategies utilized during the transition from foraging to agriculture. By examining mobility and subsistence throughout this long time period and at three different locations, this study offers a unique spatio-temporal perspective on changing Mesoamerican foraging societies.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.