Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Human Adaptation to a Variable Environment

本论文的研究项目是对导致人类生产的土丘及其遗产的各种活动进行人类学考古调查，并评估这些土丘产生的环境条件。该研究不仅考察了土丘的形成，还考察了土丘对人类及其周围环境的物质影响。了解人类在世界范围内塑造和体验低地景观的程度，可以影响当前的政治和社会管理决策，也有助于未来的预测和历史和生态知识的应用。该研究探索了一个理论前提的含义，即人们不仅生活在不断变化的环境条件中，而且还在不断地导航、理解和协商过去的物质痕迹。该项目研究了过去的社会如何以及为什么进行某些活动，有意或无意地在低地环境中创造了土丘。不断变化的景观和人类经历对人类及其周围环境产生了什么样的影响？该博士生正在使用地质考古方法，包括广泛覆盖的螺旋钻调查和测试坑，重建土丘前的景观，以及该遗址的土丘建造历史。场地形成过程的时间和异质性将通过地理信息系统（GIS）为基础的空间分析进行检查。随后对一个土丘进行了战略性的挖掘，这将提供有关其起源和历史的详细数据，以及土丘与周围环境相互作用的性质。该项目最终产生了一个地质考古学和人类学的方法，以不同的方式人类塑造自己和他们的世界，创造有意义的地方。这种方法可以应用于全球其他类似情况，也为考古学学生提供了实地考察教育和培训的机会。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 dissertation research project is an anthropological archaeological investigation of the diverse activities that resulted in human-produced earthen mounds, their legacies, and assesses the environmental conditions in which these mounds emerged. The research examines not only mound formation, but also the material impacts of mounds on people and their surroundings. Understanding the extent to which humans shape and experience lowland landscapes worldwide can influence current political and societal management decisions, as well as help future predictions and applications of historical and ecological knowledge. The research explores the implications of the theoretical premise that people do not just live through changing environmental conditions, but also constantly navigate, understand, and negotiate the material traces of the past.The project examines how and why societies in the past carried out certain activities that resulted, intentionally or unintentionally, in the creation of earthen mounds in lowland environments. What kinds of effects did changing landscapes and human experiences have on people and their surroundings? The doctoral student is using geoarchaeological methodologies consisting of a broad-coverage auger survey, and test pits, to reconstruct the pre-mound landscape, and the history of mound-building in the site. The timing and heterogeneity of site formation processes will be examined through geographic information system (GIS)-based spatial analysis. A strategically located excavation of a mound follows, which will provide detailed data about its genesis and history, as well as the nature of the mound’s interaction with its immediate surroundings. The project ultimately generates a geoarchaeological and anthropological approach to the diverse ways humans have shaped themselves and their world, creating meaningful places. Such an approach, which can be applied in other similar contexts worldwide, also provides archaeology students with fieldwork educational and training opportunities.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.