Doctoral Dissertation Research: Assessing Variability within Lithic Production Sequences

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。许多考古研究试图了解人类文化的起源和传播。由于没有观察现存人群的选择，考古学家在重建史前文化的进化史时，必须完全依靠史前人类生产的物品（即物质文化记录）。迄今为止，在史前时期区分“相关”或“不相关”的文化群体主要依赖于石器组合的相似性。但是，在单个组合中可以期望有多少变化仍然未知。只有在量化了一个单一职业中可以预期的变异量之后，人们才能开始区分那些超出共同文化群体预期数量的人群。该项目通过开发一种新的石器技术分析方法，推进石器分析领域和研究人员提取史前人类行为实践的能力，有助于填补这一空白。一个关键的组成部分是独特的石器收藏的数字化，这不仅可以确保它们的寿命，还可以确保研究人员和公众可以访问它们，而不受旅行和财政等典型限制。除了数字遗产保护的影响外，该项目还为公众提供了一个年轻女性学者在多个领域罕见的交叉点工作的例子。制作的材料将被纳入K-12教育模块，以激励来自科学、进化论和考古学等一系列社会经济背景的学生。这个项目解决了石器生产在单一人口和两个不同人口之间的差异程度。该项目将专注于非常特定类型的石器文物，因为它们具有最大的存储潜力，从而在个人层面上产生人类行为。这些物品在考古界被称为“改装品”，这意味着史前人类在制作石器（如打燧石）过程中产生的所有材料都被保存在考古记录中，并最终被拼凑在一起。因此，这些“改装”显示了个体在朝着目标努力时所采取的行动。这是在这些改装中记录的行动序列，加上已被证明是分析文化相关性的有意义代理的变量。由于数据的顺序性质，时间序列统计分析是与数学家同事合作进行的，以量化单个种群内和种群之间的变异性。由此，考古学家可以通过定量标准来评估石器技术行为中的文化连续性与独立收敛。这个项目的结果将通过推进石器技术的分析技术，展示与数学家合作的效用，并提供一个定量标准，让其他团队可以测试史前文化融合与连续性的假设，从而为考古学领域做出贡献。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 award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Much of archaeological research seeks to understand the origins and diffusion of human culture. Without the option of observing living populations, archaeologists must rely solely on the objects produced by prehistoric peoples (i.e. the material culture record) when reconstructing the evolutionary history of prehistoric cultures. Distinguishing “related” or “unrelated” cultural groups in prehistory has to date relied largely on similarities among stone tool assemblages. But, how much variation one can expect within a single assemblage remains unknown. Only after quantifying the amount of variation one can expect within a single occupation can one begin to distinguish populations which fall outside of the expected amount for a shared cultural group. This project helps to fill this void by developing a new analytical approach to stone tool technology, advancing the field of stone tool analysis and researchers’ abilities to extract human behavioral practices in prehistory. A key component is the digitization of unique stone tool collections which will not only ensure their longevity but will ensure their accessibility to researchers and the public without typical constraints such as travel and finances. In addition to the digital heritage preservation impact, this project provides an example to the public of a young female scholar working at a rare intersection of multiple fields. Materials produced will be incorporated into K-12 education modules to inspire students from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in science, evolution, and archaeology.This project addresses the degree to which stone tool production varies within a single population and between two different populations. This project will focus on very specific types of stone tool artifacts because these have the greatest potential for storing and thus yielding human actions at the individual level. These objects are referred to as refits in the archaeological community, meaning all of the material which was produced during the production of stone tools (i.e. flintknapping) by a prehistoric person are preserved in the archaeological record and eventually pieced back together. These “refits” therefore display the actions taken by an individual while they were working towards a goal. It is the very sequence of actions recorded in these refits coupled with variables which have been demonstrated to be meaningful proxies for cultural relatedness which are analyzed. Because of the sequential nature of the data, time-series statistical analyses is performed in collaboration with mathematician colleagues to quantify the amount of variability present within a single population and among populations. From this, a quantitative standard by which archaeologists can evaluate cultural continuity versus independent convergence in stone tool technological behavior can be produced. The results from this project will contribute to the field of archaeology by advancing analytical techniques for stone tool technology, demonstrating the utility of collaborations with mathematicians, and providing a quantitative standard by which other teams may test hypotheses concerning convergence vs. cultural continuity in prehistory.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.