Collaborative Research: Exploring Subsistence Economies, Technological Organization, and Site Structure in Eastern Beringia

该奖项资助对从阿拉斯加中部破碎的猛犸遗址中回收的材料进行科学分析。这个遗址在关于美洲人口的辩论中占有重要地位，并产生了大量的手工艺品和屠宰动物骨骼-比其他早期白令遗址更加多样化和数量众多。这些材料为理解人类在从最后一个冰河时代向现代环境过渡期间的适应提供了线索。通过对现场采集的分析，研究小组将探索觅食生态和季节性土地利用策略的变化，重建生计经济，并调查现场活动随时间的变化。更广泛的影响包括向科学界提供现场材料和原始数据，支持几名学生和一名博士后研究人员，为土著青年提供教育机会，以及与区域部落领导人举行文化遗产峰会。对阿拉斯加中部破碎的猛犸（1989-2010）的调查揭示了一个深埋的遗址，从13,310年到2250年前有多个职业，包括两个罕见的居住营地。该网站已高度影响广泛的觅食模式的发展，并产生了最大的动物区系组合在白令海的物种丰富度和确定的标本计数。然而，没有进行详细的人工制品、动物群或空间分析。项目团队将对这一大型收藏进行策划和分析，以重建从最初人类定居到最近的人力资源和风险管理战略。该团队将采用动物考古学，生物分子（蛋白质组学和遗传物种鉴定）和石器技术分析。目标包括重建网站的生存经济随着时间的推移（包括饮食广度和季节性土地利用战略）;调查原材料的使用和采购;并确定网站的结构和活动模式，通过植物宏化石，空间和炉膛生化分析。这一综合分析战略将使研究团队能够记录人类行为随时间的变化，并将人类适应与区域环境动态联系起来。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。

This award funds the scientific analysis of materials recovered from the site of Broken Mammoth in central Alaska. This site has figured heavily in debates about the peopling of the Americas and yielded a vast collection of artifacts and butchered animal bones--far more diverse and numerous than from other early Beringian sites. These materials hold clues to understanding human adaptations during the transition from the last Ice Age to the modern environment. Through analysis of the site collection, the research team will explore changes in foraging ecology and seasonal land use strategies, reconstruct subsistence economies, and investigate changes in site activities through time. Broader impacts include making site materials and primary data available to the scientific community, support for several students and a post-doctoral researcher, educational opportunities for Indigenous youth, and a cultural heritage summit with regional Tribal leadership. Investigations at Broken Mammoth (1989–2010) in central Alaska revealed a deeply buried site with multiple occupations dating from 13,310 to 2250 years ago, including two rare residential camps. The site has been highly influential in developing broad spectrum foraging models and has yielded the largest faunal assemblage in Beringia by species richness and count of identified specimens. However, no detailed artifact, faunal, or spatial analyses have been conducted. The project team will curate and analyze this large collection in order to reconstruct human resource and risk management strategies from initial human settlement to the recent past. The team will employ zooarchaeological, biomolecular (proteomic and genetic species identifications), and lithic technological analyses. Objectives include reconstructing site subsistence economies through time (including diet breadth and seasonal land use strategies); investigating raw material use and procurement; and identifying site structure and activity patterns through plant macrofossil, spatial and hearth biochemical analyses. This integrated analytical strategy will enable the research team to document changes in human behavior through time and link human adaptations to regional environmental dynamics.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.