Doctoral Dissertation Research: Diet Alteration in a High Altitude Environment

本博士论文项目考察了人类在高海拔环境中大规模持续生存的动态适应机制和文化互动。海拔2500米以上的高海拔环境给人类的适应带来了严峻的生物、生态和后勤挑战。虽然人们认识到人类几千年来一直在短暂的基础上使用这些环境，但人类在这些地方持续全年居住的催化剂仍然是一个有争议的问题。该项目在一个平均海拔超过4500米的地区研究了这一问题，并重点介绍了适应寒冷的驯化物种，这些物种被认为对人类的永久占领做出了重大贡献。然而，该地区的史前考古还处于起步阶段。这样的高海拔地区可以为人类学家提供适当的实验室，以研究新技术和相互作用对生活在高海拔极端地区的人们的影响。学者们必须转向这些地区去发现人类活动的原因和过程。利用混合风险降低和基于优化的高海拔采集者与文化接触动态模型的理论框架，博士生和同事们提出了假设，试图捕捉当地居民在该地区强大的自然约束下采取的风险管理策略的范围。这些假设是通过在一个具有良好分层文化序列的遗址进行综合挖掘来评估的。该项目解决了重要的文化历史问题，有助于理解高海拔地区持续的长期占领，并记录了一个全新的、可能前所未有的文化综合体。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。

This doctoral dissertation project examines the dynamic adaptive mechanisms and cultural interactions that have contributed to large-scale sustained human occupations of high-altitude environments. High-elevation environments exceeding 2500 meters above sea level pose severe biological, ecological, and logistical challenges for human adaptation. While it is recognized that humans have used such settings on an ephemeral basis for thousands of years, catalysts of sustained year-round human occupation of such places remain a matter of debate. This project examines this issues in a region with an average elevation of over 4500 meters above sea level and focuses on the introduction of cold-adapted domesticated species which are believed to have contributed significantly to permanent human occupation. However, the prehistoric archaeology of the area is in its infancy. Such high-altitude zones can provide anthropologists with appropriate laboratories to examine the impact of novel technologies and interactions on people living in high-elevation extremes. It is to such regions that scholars must turn to discover the causes and process of human engagements. Using a theoretical framework blending risk-reduction and optimization-based models of high-altitude foragers with culture contact dynamics, the doctoral student and colleagues develop hypotheses that attempt to capture the range of risk-management strategies adopted by local occupants given the region's formidable natural constraints. These hypotheses are evaluated via an integrated program of excavation at a site with a well-stratified cultural sequence. The project addresses major questions of culture-historic importance for understanding the sustained long-term occupation at high elevations and documents an entirely new and potentially unprecedented cultural complex.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.