The Development of Human Innovation in an Arid Biodiverse Environment.

该项目的目标是研究食物、农业和燃料使用的长期动态，这些动态与几千年来发生在环境敏感地区的一系列大规模社会和环境变化有关，这些变化见证了几次连续的革命性社会转型，包括最早从狩猎和采集到农业的转变，村庄生活的出现，以及具有不同社会等级的城市和帝国的建设。该项目考察了与燃料开采、农业变化、人口规模和密度的变化、定居模式的变化以及对气候事件的反应有关的景观变化。解释这些变化发生原因的理论经常援引食物生产或人口变化，尽管很少考虑食物的实际残留物；同样，尽管燃料在维持手工经济和社会运转方面发挥着核心作用，但很少讨论燃料与社会变革的关系。本研究聚焦于长期变化的动态，探索食物、燃料、农业、社会组织和环境变化之间的持续相互联系。了解它们相互联系的深度可以帮助我们对当前全球变暖带来的许多问题做出反应。通过研究稳定期和变动期，可以研究对社会和环境变化的可变适应性反应。考虑中的两个遗址总共跨越了大约1万年，记录了世界上最早的从狩猎采集到农耕的转变，出现了社会复杂性，以及一个帝国的形成和崩溃。考古植物学，研究过去植物的使用，为记录和探索食物、燃料和农业提供了一个强大的工具，提供了对这些动态的见解。研究小组采用新创建的参考资料收集，重新检查从每个地点收集的考古植物浮选样本，以补充现有的宏观植物数据，并帮助确定和记录：(1)植物岩，灰伪晶（允许历史上代表性不足的分类群被观察到），以及经常被忽视的1毫米“残留物”部分中的粪球粒；(2) 4毫米的无定形块，可以代表食物、面包或燃料。FTIR光谱用于探索沉积序列和热历史，以帮助更好地解释植物数据。谷物的同位素分析被用来帮助追踪种植策略。总的来说，综合方法有助于抵消每种技术固有的保存和方法偏差，提供更全面的古代植物使用视图。通过该项目生成的数字参考资料将在网上公开共享，为其他研究人员提供资源。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。

The goal of this project is to examine the long-term dynamics of food, farming, and fuel use in relation to a series of large-scale social and environmental changes that took place over several thousand years in an environmentally sensitive region witnessed several, sequential revolutionary social transitions, including the earliest shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture, the emergence of village life, and the construction of cities and empires with distinct social hierarchies. The project examines modifications to the landscape linked with fuel extraction, agricultural changes, morphing population sizes and densities, changing settlement patterns, and responses to climatic events. Theories explaining why these changes took place often invoke food production or population change, although actual remains of foods are rarely considered; similarly, fuel is rarely discussed in relation to social change, despite the central role that fuel plays in maintaining craft economies and allowing societies to function. This study focuses on the dynamics of long-term change, to explore the ongoing interconnectedness of food, fuel, farming, social organization, and environmental change. Understanding the depth of their interconnections can help inform responses to the many problems current global warming presents. By examining periods of both stability and flux, it is possible to examine variable adaptive responses to social and environmental change. Two sites under consideration collectively span roughly 10,000 years and document the earliest transitions in the world from hunting-and-gathering to farming emergent social complexity and the formation and collapse of an empire. Archaeobotany, the study of plant use in the past, provides a powerful tool to document and explore food, fuel and farming, providing insights into these dynamics. The research team employs newly created reference collections to reexamine curated archaeobotanical flotation samples from each site to supplement existing macro-botanical data and help identify and document: (1) phytoliths, ash pseudomorphs (that allow historically underrepresented taxa to be observed), and dung spherulites within the oft neglected 1mm "residue" fraction; and (2) 4mm amorphous chunks that could represent food, bread, or fuel. FTIR spectroscopy is used to explore depositional sequences and pyric histories to help better inform the interpretation of plant data. Isotopic analyses of grains are used to help track cultivation strategies through time. Collectively, the integrated approach helps offset preservation and methodological biases inherent to each technique, providing a more comprehensive view of ancient plant use. Digital reference material generated through this project will be openly shared online providing a resource for other researchers.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.