Doctoral Dissertation Research: Diet Alteration in a High Altitude Environment

这一博士论文项目考察了促使人类大规模持续占据高海拔环境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适应带来了严峻的生物、生态和后勤挑战。虽然人们认识到，数千年来，人类在短暂的基础上使用这种环境，但人类常年持续占领这些地方的催化剂仍然是一个有争议的问题。该项目在平均海拔4500米以上的区域研究这一问题，重点是引进适应寒冷的驯化物种，据信这些物种对人类的永久占领作出了重大贡献。然而，该地区的史前考古学还处于初级阶段。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的影响。正是在这样的地区，学者们必须转向发现人类参与的原因和过程。这位博士生和同事使用了一个将高海拔觅食者的风险降低和基于优化的模型与文化接触动力学相结合的理论框架，开发了一些假设，试图捕捉当地居住者在该地区强大的自然限制下所采取的风险管理策略的范围。这些假说是通过在文化序列层次分明的地点进行挖掘的综合计划来评估的。该项目解决了文化的重大问题--对于理解在高海拔地区持续的长期占领具有历史重要性，并记录了一个全新的、可能是史无前例的文化综合体。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.