Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Early Prehistoric Human Ecology

与其他动物相比，人类更有能力调整自己的行为，以应对各种环境的挑战。他们还会改变环境以更好地适应自己的需求。通过在不同的生态环境中调查人类与环境的相互作用，考古学家能够确定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，调查早期人类和他们的史前环境之间的关系。这项研究的结果将提供重要的新信息，以帮助科学家了解人类和后来的人类如何发展到今天仍然很重要的本土农业系统。该项目也代表了STEM领域女性之间的国际合作，为她们的出版和职业发展提供了机会。最后，通过从后代社区招聘人员并参与社区外展活动，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，但考古学家一直认为，有些地方比其他地方更有吸引力，特别是对史前的狩猎采集者来说，他们直接从周围环境中获取日常生存所需的资源。障碍最多、机会最少的地方通常被称为“边缘”，以北极苔原和热带沙漠为代表。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，因为那里的大量生命——极其丰富多样的动植物——要么是不可食用的，要么是人类无法接近的。然而，确定雨林对人类的实际适应性是困难的，因为在这些地区很少发现狩猎采集者的地点。这个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不足。横跨两个山谷的洞穴将被挖掘出来，以便找到感兴趣的地点。通过分析石器、植物和动物遗骸，以及发现的其他种类的考古证据，该项目将评估这种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。

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.