Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Early Prehistoric Human Ecology

人类比其他任何动物都更能够适应自己的行为，以应对各种环境的挑战。他们还改变他们的环境，以更好地满足他们的需要。通过调查不同生态环境和整个时间的人与环境的相互作用，考古学家能够识别和研究人类群体在面对变化时表现出弹性的精确方式。在这个项目中，密歇根大学的一名博士候选人将与同事和当地利益相关者合作，调查早期人类与山区-雨林交汇处的史前环境之间的关系。这项研究的结果将为科学家了解人类和后来发展的本土农业系统提供重要的新信息，这些系统在今天仍然很重要。该项目还代表了STEM领域妇女的国际合作，为出版和职业发展提供了机会。最后，通过从后裔社区招聘人员和参与社区外联活动，该项目将使当地土著群体参与保护和照顾他们自己的文化遗产。尽管人类已经占据了地球上几乎所有的陆地栖息地，但考古学家长期以来一直认为，有些地方比其他地方更有吸引力，特别是对于那些直接从周围环境中获取日常生存资源的史前狩猎采集者来说。障碍最多、机会最少的地方通常被称为“边缘”，北极苔原和热带沙漠就是典型的例子。长期以来，考古学家们一直在争论热带雨林是否属于这一类别，因为那里的许多丰富的生命动植物的巨大丰富性和多样性对人类来说要么是不可食用的，要么是不可接近的。然而，确定热带雨林对人类的实际适用性是困难的，因为在这些地区很少发现狩猎采集遗址。该项目将通过调查云雾森林中潜在的狩猎采集地点来解决这一问题。将挖掘横跨两个山谷的洞穴，以确定感兴趣的地点。通过分析发现的石器、动植物遗骸和其他考古证据，该项目将评估该环境是否像人们普遍认为的那样对早期人类具有挑战性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

More so than any other animal, humans are able to adapt their behaviors to meet the challenges of a wide range of environments. They also alter their environments to better suit their needs. By investigating human-environment interactions across diverse ecological settings and throughout time, archaeologists are able to identify and study precise ways in which human groups exhibit resilience in the face of change. In this project a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, will collaborate with colleagues and local stakeholders to investigate the relationship between early humans and their prehistoric environments at a mountain - rainforest intersection. The results of this research will contribute important new information to scientists’ understanding of how humans and later developed native agricultural systems which remain important today. This project also represents an international collaboration among women in STEM, providing opportunities for publication and career advancement. Finally, by hiring from descendant communities and engaging in community outreach, the project will engage local indigenous groups in the preservation and caretaking of their own cultural heritage.Although humans have come to occupy nearly every terrestrial habitat on the planet, archaeologists have long believed that some places are more attractive than others, particularly for prehistoric hunter-gatherers who drew their daily resources for survival directly from their surroundings. Places that present the most obstacles and afford the fewest opportunities are generally referred to as “marginal,” and are epitomized by arctic tundra and tropical deserts. Archaeologists have long debated whether tropical rainforests belong in this group because much of the superabundant life there—the tremendous richness and diversity of plants and animals—is either inedible or inaccessible to humans. However, determining rainforests’ actual suitability to humans is difficult because very few hunter-gatherer sites have been found in such regions. This project will address that shortfall by investigating potential hunter-gatherer sites in a cloud forest,. Caves across two valleys will be excavated in order to locate sites of interest. By analyzing the stone tools, plant and animal remains, and other kinds of archaeological evidence uncovered, this project will evaluate whether this environment was as challenging to early humans as is widely believed.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.