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

该奖项用于对阿拉斯加中部猛犸象残骸现场发现的材料进行科学分析。这个遗址在有关美洲人的争论中发挥了重要作用，并产生了大量的文物和屠宰的动物骨骼--比其他早期柏林时代遗址的种类和数量要多得多。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过程中的适应提供了线索。通过对遗址收集的分析，研究团队将探索觅食生态和季节性土地利用策略的变化，重建自给自足的经济，并调查遗址活动随时间的变化。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。对阿拉斯加中部的猛犸象(-2010年)的调查发现，这是一个埋得很深的遗址，有多种用途，可以追溯到13,310到2250年前，包括两个罕见的居民点。该地点在开发广谱觅食模型方面具有很大的影响力，从物种丰富度和已识别标本的数量来看，它产生了贝林吉亚州最大的动物群组合。然而，还没有进行详细的人工制品、动物群或空间分析。项目组将对这一大集合进行整理和分析，以重建从最初的人类住区到最近的过去的人力资源和风险管理战略。该团队将使用动物考古学、生物分子(蛋白质组和遗传物种鉴定)和岩屑技术分析。目标包括通过时间重建场地自给自足的经济(包括饮食广度和季节性土地使用战略)；调查原材料的使用和采购；通过植物宏观化石、空间和炉底生化分析确定场地结构和活动模式。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。

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.