Collaborative Research: Origins of food production in the northern neotropical lowlands

粮食生产的起源是新热带北部地区出现复杂社会、体制不平等和社会组织的重要催化剂。然而，到目前为止，人们对关键作物(即玉米、木薯)最初被人类消费的时间、随着时间的推移而被密集使用的程度以及野生种子和根茎作物是如何纳入区域饮食的了解很少。最近的进展表明，农业在大亚马孙地区的全新世中期已经很好地建立起来了，但我们在北部新热带地区缺乏可比较的数据，尽管我们知道这些地区之间存在着重大的迁徙和相互作用。该项目将记录整个全新世植物食品的加工和消费，并制作该地区现代植物的新微植物学文库，用于比较研究。所研究的许多主要作物都是当今全球重要的大宗商品，也是新热带地区饮食的核心特征，这使得研究它们的来源成为一个具有全球重要性的问题。该项目将对从12,500至1,000卡BP的考古背景中的磨石和牙石中获得的淀粉粒和植硅体进行微植物学分析。为了获得这些样本，项目成员将在阔叶新热带森林中的两个偏远的避岩地点进行挖掘，在那里以前已经证明有机材料得到了很好的保存。将通过木炭和骨骼上的放射性碳日期来维持时间控制。微植物学数据将用于确定驯化和野生植物食品的加工和消费，并确定特定的栽培植物，如玉米和木薯何时被纳入人类饮食。这些数据还将被用来研究这些驯养动物相对于其他野生类群的重要性变化。数据将通过正式协商和将已发表的文章翻译成当地语言与后代社区共享。该项目还将促进女性和代表不足的学生在科学领域的培训。这一奖项反映了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。

The origin of food production was an important catalyst for the emergence of complex societies, institutional inequality, and social organization in the northern neotropics. Yet, to date, there is little understanding of when key crops (i.e., maize, manioc) were first consumed by humans, how intensively they were used through time, and how wild seed and root crops were integrated into a regional diet. Recent advances suggest that agriculture was well established by the middle Holocene in greater Amazonia, but we lack comparable data in the northern neotropics, even though we know there was significant migration and interaction between these regions. The project will document the processing and consumption of plant foods throughout the Holocene and produce new microbotanical libraries of modern plants from the region for comparative research. Many of the key crops studied are today globally important commodities and central features of diets across neotropical contexts making the study of their origins a matter of global importance. This project will carry out microbotanical analysis of starch grains and phytoliths obtained from grinding stones and dental calculus from archaeological contexts dating between 12,500 and 1,000 cal BP. To obtain these samples project members will conduct excavations at two remote rockshelter sites in a broadleaf neotropical forest where excellent preservation of organic materials has been previously demonstrated. Chronological control will be maintained with radiocarbon dates on charcoal and bone. Microbotanical data will be used to identify processing and consumption of domesticated and wild plant foods and to determine when specific cultigens such as maize and manioc were incorporated into the human diet. These data will also be used to study the changing importance of these domesticates relative to other wild taxa. Data will be shared with descendent communities though formal consultations and translations of published articles into local languages. This project will also promote the training of women and underrepresented students in the sciences.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.