Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Initial Landscape Peopling

现代人最初居住在不熟悉的早期景观中，他们所使用的适应策略知之甚少，或者这些策略中存在多少变化——这些过程可以通过考古学来揭示。这个博士论文项目将调查第一批人在这样一个地区定居的策略。它被冰川覆盖，这意味着这里的早期遗址可能离人类第一次进入该地区不远，这使它成为研究对未知土地适应的理想地区。这项研究的结果将有助于阐明美洲拓荒者使用的适应过程，并将与人类历史上的其他人类过程相关。该项目还将利用以前挖掘的考古藏品：许多考古遗址被挖掘出来，但从未进行过彻底的分析，导致研究潜力的丧失，以及用于挖掘和收藏遗址的资金的损失，尤其是在可用的博物馆存储空间减少的情况下。在这种情况下，博物馆藏品的使用尤为重要，因为它们可能包括人类历史基本过程的罕见例子。为了研究该地区早期人群的适应策略，研究将集中在研究区域内的六个地点。这些遗址是一组独特的大型基地营地的一部分，这些基地营地在整个地区都有复杂的空间格局。虽然这些营地肯定是在该地区有人居住后不久就被占领的，但它们与更广泛的人类定居过程的确切关系仍不清楚。从宏观来源分析和地球化学来源分析中推断出的石器原材料来源代表和采购模式将提供景观熟悉度和流动模式的信息。石器工具技术分析，包括工具和抛射点形态、工具多样性和工具使用多样性，将用于推断流动性模式、现场活动和旨在降低风险的技术策略，假设风险最小化策略将在人们对周围景观不太熟悉的地点更加明显。通过研究这六个地点之间的模式和变化，研究人员将能够研究种群在新景观中的适应策略。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。

Little is known of the adaptive strategies used by modern humans who initially populated early unfamiliar landscapes, or how much variation existed in these strategies – processes that can be revealed through archaeology. This doctoral dissertation project will investigate the strategies used by the first people to settle such a region. It was covered in glacial ice, meaning the early sites here are likely not far removed from the first expansion of people into the area, making it an ideal region in which to study adaptations to an unknown land. The results of this study will help illuminate the adaptive processes used by pioneering groups in the Americas and will have relevance to other peopling processes in human history. This project will contribute as well by using previously excavated archaeological collections: many archaeological sites are excavated but then never thoroughly analyzed, leading to a loss of research potential and money spent excavating and housing site collections, especially as available museum storage space declines. The use of museum collections is especially important in this case, as they may include rare examples of a fundamental process of human history. To investigate the adaptive strategies of the early populations in this region, research will focus on six sites found across the study area. These sites are part of a group of unique, large basecamp sites with complex spatial patterning that occur throughout the region. While these base camps must have been occupied soon after the region was populated, their exact relationship to the broader peopling process is still unclear. Stone tool raw material source representation and procurement patterns, as inferred from macroscopic source analyses and geochemical source analyses, will provide information on landscape familiarity and mobility patterns. Stone tool technological analyses, including tool and projectile point morphology, tool diversity, and tool use diversity, will be used to infer mobility patterns, site activities, and technological strategies meant to mitigate risk, with the assumption that risk minimization strategies will be more pronounced at sites in which people were less familiar with the surrounding landscape. By examining patterns and variation among these six sites, the researchers will be able to investigate the adaptive strategies of populations in a new landscape.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.