An Isotopic Dietary Reconstruction of Texas Hunter-Gatherers

在国家科学基金会的支持下，罗伯特·哈德博士和杰弗里·弗朗西斯先生将协调对一大片史前人类骨骼的化学分析，这些骨骼出土于约15万平方英尺的土地上。位于德克萨斯州沿海平原的一处面积约为1公里的地区。他们的目标是首先利用这些数据来重建饮食，然后确定生存策略与定居模式之间的关系。正如研究人员所指出的，该地区的史前史是非常反常的。在世界上的大部分地区，狩猎和采集民族生活在小的流动群体中，并将死者埋葬在单独的地点，大概是因为他们的领土太大，他们无法迅速将新死者转移到一个中心位置。当家养植物和动物被引进后，人口规模增加，定居的村庄出现，群体开始在中心地点埋葬死者。然而，在德克萨斯州的这个地区，从大约4000年前开始，有组织的墓地开始被美洲原住民的流动猎人和采集者利用，沿着主要的排水和海湾。墓地的使用一直持续到史前时期的最后一千年。墓地的出现是矛盾的，因为它们的出现表明人口增加，流动性减少，聚集和领土增加。尽管有这些变化，但考古证据表明，这是一种群体水平的、移动的狩猎和采集适应。在史前，尽管邻近地区存在农业经济，气候也支持旱作，但人们并不使用驯化的植物。这种模式与迅速采用农业的北美东南部和西南部形成鲜明对比。人们提出了几种理论来解释这一现象，他们都认为，丰富的当地野生食物资源允许减少流动性和领土面积。然而，它们的不同之处在于可能涉及的食物组合，一些人专注于鱼类和其他海洋资源，而另一些人则专注于丰富的野生植物，如山核桃。由于骨骼在人的一生中会被重塑，而骨骼中的碳和氮来自饮食来源，因此骨骼的化学成分间接反映了所摄入的食物类型。研究人员将分析从该地区不同地区提取的大量骨骼的碳和氮同位素值。他们还将检查锶同位素，因为这些同位素反映了个体一生中的运动。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将为许多考古学家提供感兴趣的数据，并为美国史前史一个相对不为人知的方面提供新的线索。它还将提供对在相对不受强迫的社会中形成社会组织的过程的见解。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Robert Hard and Mr. Jeffrey Francis will coordinate the chemical analysis of a large series of prehistoric human skeletons excavated in a ca. 150,000 sq. km area of the coastal plain of Texas. Their goal is to use these data first to reconstruct diet and then to determine the relationship between subsistence strategy and settlement pattern. As the researchers note, the prehistory of the region is highly anomalous. In most portions of the world, hunting and gathering peoples lived in small mobile groups and buried their dead in individual locations, presumably because their territories were so large that they could not quickly transport the newly deceased to a central location. When domestic plants and animals were introduced, population size increased, sedentary villages emerged and groups began to bury their dead in central locations. In this region of Texas however beginning about 4000 years ago organized cemeteries began to be utilized along the major drainages and bays by native American mobile hunters and gatherers. Cemetery use continued through the last millennium of the prehistoric period. The cemeteries are paradoxical as their emergence suggests increased population, reduced mobility, aggregation and increased territoriality. Despite these changes however archaeological evidence indicates a band-level, mobile hunting and gathering adaptation. Prehistorically, domesticated plants were not used despite the existence of farming economies in adjacent areas and a climate which would have supported dry-farming. This pattern is in contrast to the North American Southeast and Southwest where agriculture was quickly adopted. Several theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon and they share a belief that rich local wild food resources allowed for reduced mobility and territory size. They differ however in just what mix of foods might be involved, some focusing on fish and other marine resources, and others on abundant wild plants such as pecans. Because bone is remodeled over the human lifetime and the carbon and nitrogen in bone derives from dietary sources, bone chemical composition indirectly reflects the type of foods consumed. The researchers will analyze carbon and nitrogen isotope values from a large series of skeletons drawn from different subregions within the area. They will also examine strontium isotopes because these reflect individual movement over a lifetime.This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and shed new light on a relatively unknown aspect of United States prehistory. It will also provide insight into the processes which shape social organization in relatively uncompelled societies.