Doctoral Dissertation Research: Body Size and Shape Variation in Modern and Late Pleistocene-Holocene Gazelles: A 3D Approach

博士论文研究：现代和晚更新世-全新世瞪羚的体型和形状变化：3D 方法

• 批准号: 2308745
• 负责人: Natalie Munro
• 金额: $ 2.49万
• 依托单位: University of Connecticut
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-01 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2308745&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Body; Size

The goal of this doctoral dissertation research project is to develop a new 3D analytical approach to untangle the impact of environmental and anthropogenic factors on past human and animal populations, ultimately offering insight into the transition of humans from foragers to farmers. By providing new 3D quantitative techniques that enable animal bones to be utilized as proxies of past anthropogenic and environmental impacts, this project contributes to important discussions about the conditions surrounding this transition. These data provide the background conditions under which human sedentism and agriculture arose, allowing these events to be investigated on a local scale while simultaneously contributing to knowledge of how the earth’s major systems changed through time. Importantly, this research highlights the essential role of archaeology in recognizing the long-term impacts of humans on the environment, and how archaeological data can help guide policy and conservation efforts by informing on the ongoing interactions between humans, climate change and biotic communities. In collaboration with an international team this research will develop new quantitative algorithms for 3D shape analysis including two new complete model analysis (CMA) procedures to position (orient in 3D space) and segment 3D bone models for quantitative analysis. These procedures will be applied to 3D bone models from modern skeletal material from mountain gazelles of known age, sex and geographic location to identify areas of bone surfaces that provide good markers of sex, precipitation, temperature and locomotion. These algorithms will be applied to 14 animal bone assemblages from archaeological sites spanning the foraging-farming transition to better understand the intensity and nature of human-environment interactions during this pivotal time in human prehistory. This study will contribute both by developing new algorithms to analyze 3D bone models, and by providing the necessary tools to interpret animal morphological data. Furthermore, the CMA algorithms generated by this project will have applicability to a wide set of research questions and can be adapted by other disciplines.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.

这个博士论文研究项目的目标是开发一种新的3D分析方法，以解开环境和人为因素对过去人类和动物种群的影响，最终深入了解人类从觅食者到农民的转变。通过提供新的3D定量技术，使动物骨骼能够被用作过去人为和环境影响的代理，该项目有助于围绕这一转变的条件进行重要讨论。 这些数据提供了人类定居和农业产生的背景条件，使这些事件能够在当地范围内进行调查，同时有助于了解地球的主要系统如何随时间变化。重要的是，这项研究强调了考古学在认识人类对环境的长期影响方面的重要作用，以及考古数据如何通过告知人类，气候变化和生物群落之间正在进行的相互作用来帮助指导政策和保护工作。该研究将与一个国际团队合作，开发新的3D形状分析定量算法，包括两个新的完整模型分析（CMA）程序，用于定位（在3D空间中定向）和分割3D骨骼模型进行定量分析。这些程序将应用于来自已知年龄，性别和地理位置的山地瞪羚的现代骨骼材料的3D骨骼模型，以确定骨骼表面的区域，这些区域提供了良好的性别，降水，温度和运动标记。这些算法将被应用于14个动物骨骼组合从考古遗址跨越觅食-农业过渡，以更好地了解在人类史前史的这一关键时期人类与环境相互作用的强度和性质。这项研究将有助于开发新的算法来分析3D骨骼模型，并提供必要的工具来解释动物形态学数据。此外，该项目产生的CMA算法将适用于广泛的研究问题，并可适用于其他学科。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。