Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Human Adaptation to a Variable Environment

博士论文改进奖：人类对多变环境的适应

• 批准号: 2232056
• 负责人: Scott Fitzpatrick
• 金额: $ 1.43万
• 依托单位: University of Oregon Eugene
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-11-01 至 2024-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2232056&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Award; Human

The goal of this doctoral dissertation project is to understand human-environmental interactions more fully in the Northern Great Basin since the late Pleistocene era. Paleoethnobotany is a rapidly developing field within archaeology that examines the relationship between people and plants in the past, and this project uses paleoethnobotanical remains from ancient basketry to explore the relationship between plants and societies. Archaeological excavation of caves and rock shelters in the Great Basin have collectively produced one of the largest textile artifact collections in the world. The research team will identify plant materials used in textiles, spanning the late Pleistocene through late Holocene eras to examine how people utilized plant communities over time and to study how plant selection relates to known environmental conditions and changing settlement-subsistence models for this region. In this region traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) about native plants used in basketry is constantly evolving. This research provides important long-term data on culturally significant indigenous plants and supports continuity of traditional weaving evident in nineteenth century and contemporary Klamath, Modoc, and Northern Paiute basketry. To achieve this, the project funds tribal member collaboration for exhibit content for the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History (MNCH), undergraduate student laboratory assistance and training in fiber identification, radiocarbon dating, and archaeobotanical analysis, with project results made available on-line through the MNCH archaeological textile database. The archaeological site of Paisley Caves in eastern Oregon has been occupied at various periods in time over a span of more than 14,000 years and is one of the oldest sites in North America. Among some of the most significant finds is a textile artifact assemblage numbering 500 specimens that includes fine cordage and thread, netting, rope, basketry, matting, and sandals. For millennia, small groups living in the Northern Great Basin relied on lakeshore marsh ecosystems, seasonal springs, and dry upland steppe shrub zones for subsistence and fiber materials during different seasons. Archaeological and paleoenvironmental data suggest transitions between cave and rock shelters to open-air locales close to permanent lakes and ponds relate to wetter or more arid climatic shifts, in which pluvial lakeshore levels either rose or fell at different times throughout the Holocene. Researchers use identified plant taxa to augment what is known about changing subsistence regimes and settlement organization which have been posited as responses to these climatic changes. Plant selection for textile construction also contributes to what is known about seasonal use of wetland and upland habitats. Fiber identification procedures developed for this project, including polarized light and scanning electron microscopy with elemental analysis, advance archaeobotanical methods more generally.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.

这个博士论文项目的目标是更全面地了解自更新世晚期以来北方大盆地的人类与环境的相互作用。古民族植物学是考古学中一个快速发展的领域，它研究了过去人与植物之间的关系，该项目使用古代编织物中的古民族植物学遗迹来探索植物与社会之间的关系。在大盆地的洞穴和岩石庇护所的考古发掘，共同产生了世界上最大的纺织品收藏之一。研究小组将确定纺织品中使用的植物材料，跨越晚更新世到晚全新世时代，以研究人们如何随着时间的推移利用植物群落，并研究植物选择如何与已知的环境条件和该地区不断变化的定居生存模式相关。在这一地区，关于用于编织的本地植物的传统生态知识不断发展。这项研究提供了重要的长期数据的文化意义的土著植物和支持的连续性，传统编织明显在十九世纪和当代克拉马斯，莫多克，和北方派尤特编织。为了实现这一目标，该项目资助部落成员合作，为俄勒冈州大学自然和文化历史博物馆（MNCH）提供展览内容，本科生实验室协助和纤维鉴定，放射性碳测年和考古植物学分析培训，项目结果通过MNCH考古纺织品数据库在线提供。位于俄勒冈州东部的佩斯利洞穴考古遗址在14,000多年的时间里被占领过，是北美最古老的遗址之一。在一些最重要的发现是一个纺织人工制品组合编号500标本，包括细绳和线，网，绳，篮筐，席子，凉鞋。几千年来，生活在北方大盆地的小群体依靠湖岸沼泽生态系统，季节性泉水和干燥的高地草原灌木区在不同的季节生存和纤维材料。考古和古环境数据表明，洞穴和岩石庇护所之间的过渡到露天场所接近永久性湖泊和池塘涉及到潮湿或更干旱的气候变化，其中洪积湖岸水平上升或下降在不同的时间在整个全新世。研究人员使用确定的植物类群，以增加什么是已知的不断变化的生存制度和定居组织已被假定为这些气候变化的反应。纺织建筑的植物选择也有助于了解湿地和高地栖息地的季节性使用。为该项目开发的纤维鉴定程序，包括偏振光和扫描电子显微镜与元素分析，更普遍地推进了考古植物学方法。该奖项反映了NSF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。