Dissertation Research: Is There An Altithermal? Holocene Climate and Human Adaptation of the NW Plains

在唐纳德·格雷森博士的指导下，苏珊·休斯女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将检查从木乃伊洞穴考古遗址发现的动物遗骸，以解决人类对气候变化的反应问题。木乃伊洞穴位于怀俄明州的北福克河谷，8.5米的沉积物保留了38个不同的职业阶层。一大套放射性碳测年表明，这些年代跨度为9200年，大约从10,000年前开始。因此，他们记录了自上一次冰河时代以来大部分时间内的人类行为。其中22个级别包含动物遗骸，这些遗骸是有目的的人类狩猎和消费以及在沉积物中挖洞的啮齿动物和其他小动物的自然死亡造成的。这种动物群样本提供了一个宝贵的数据来源，既可以重建人类行为，也可以重建环境变化。许多小型哺乳动物对栖息地有特定的要求，它们的存在或不存在有助于了解它们一生中的气候和植被。动物骨骼中的碳、氧和氮同位素比率也受到环境的影响，并提供有关温度、降水和地面植被的信息。通过对一大串骨骼的分析，休斯女士将重建这些变量。她运用了最佳觅食理论来预测人类行为将如何随着环境变化而变化，她还将分析猎物年龄和物种的差异，以确定生存适应如何随着气候变化而变化。考古数据为了解人类环境关系提供了一个极好的窗口，因为它们允许在很长一段时间内追踪相互作用。有了动物遗骸，就有可能重建这两个变量的各个方面，这项研究将提供更多关于人类如何在简单的技术水平上适应的理解。木乃伊洞穴的数据将会引起许多考古学家的兴趣。该项目还将帮助培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Donald Grayson, MS Susan Hughes will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will examine faunal remains recovered from the archaeological site of Mummy Cave to address the question of human response to climatic change. Mummy Cave is situated in the North Fork River Valley in Wyoming and it's 8.5 meters of deposit preserve 38 different occupational strata. A large suite of radiocarbon dates indicate that these span a 9,200 year period, beginning ca. 10,000 years ago. Thus they document human behavior over most of the time since the last ice age. Twenty two of these levels contain faunal remains which result from purposeful human hunting and consumption as well as from natural deaths from rodents and other small animals which burrowed into the deposits. This faunal sample provides a valuable data source which allows both the reconstruction of human behavior as well as environmental change. Many small mammals have specific habitat requirements and their presence or absence provides insight into climate and vegetation during their lifetime. Carbon, oxygen and nitrogen isotopic ratios in animal bone are also influenced by environment and provide information on temperature, precipitation and ground cover. Through analysis of a large series of bones MS. Hughes will reconstruct these variables. She has employed optimum foraging theory to predict how human behavior will change in response to environmental variation and she will analyze differences in prey age and species to determine how subsistence adaptation varies in relation to climatic change.Archaeological data offer an excellent window into human environment relationships because they allow interactions to be traced over long periods of time. With faunal remains it is possible to reconstruct aspects of both variables and this research will provide increased understanding of how humans adapt at a simple level of technology. The Mummy Cave data will be of interest to many archaeologists. This project will also assist in training a promising young scientist.