Dissertation Research: Tensas Paleoethnobotanical Project

在盖勒弗里茨博士的指导下，凯瑟琳罗伯茨将完成坦萨斯古民族植物学项目。 本项目/论文将记录土著农业的出现，在园艺和农业的形式，在位于下密西西比河谷的路易斯安那州东北部的坦萨斯盆地。 它将采用进化生态学的基本模型和原则作为主要的解释框架，以便在社会政治背景下检查这些过程。 具体而言，它将调查如何降低风险可能会影响资源利用的决定。证据将取自植物遗骸、考古数据和生态信息。 目前的数据表明，虽然在坚果和水果管理的基础上实现了一定程度的复杂性，但随着玉米的出现和随后的集约化，坦萨斯盆地的社会变得更加复杂。 相比之下，种植本地种子的社会影响较小。 这些模式需要进一步证实和解释。植物遗骸分析是检验经济和文化系统演化动力学假说的一种极好手段。 这项研究，结合来自进化生态学的特定模型的预测应用，将有助于集中解释人类与其食用植物之间相互作用的性质和后果。 该项目/论文将扩大一个已经令人印象深刻的植物仍然数据库，并通过本地化的案例研究严格审查影响因素在坦萨斯盆地的foodways。 该项目的完成将增加对公元700年至公元1400年期间粮食生产模式和过程的了解，重点是农业对土著经济战略的影响。 将根据经验证据并考虑这些行为变化发生的生态和历史背景来检验有关当地人口对玉米与本土资源的依赖的假设。 这项研究的结果将提供深入了解环境，风险，生存和社会结构的演变之间的相互作用，最终揭示在其他地区的发展过程以及。 坦萨斯古民族植物学项目将澄清这些狩猎采集者最终成为农民的原因和方式，这样做，这项研究将实现更大的目标，即解释坦萨斯盆地粮食生产的起源。 为什么狩猎采集渔民的经济在坦萨斯持续了这么长时间，为什么当地群体似乎不愿意接受玉米农业，将被讨论。 本论文将提供一个很好的研究例子，定居和社会复杂的土堆建设者谁随后采用玉米。 对农业的采用及其带来的社会政治变化的基于历史的解释将面临密西西比时代日益复杂的论点，这些论点源于个人对权力的追求。 此外，人口压力和气候变化的解释不需要被援引为外生变量的转变。 最后，本项目所涉及的数据收集和假设检验将提供一个经验性的案例研究，以帮助评估该地区生计模式的建议。

Under the direction of Dr. Gayle Fritz, Katherine Roberts will complete The Tensas Paleoethnobotanical Project. This project/dissertation will document the emergence of aboriginal farming, in the form of both horticulture and agriculture, in the Tensas Basin of Northeast Louisiana located in the Lower Mississippi Valley. It will employ basic models and tenets from evolutionary ecology as the main interpretive framework to enable examination of these processes in sociopolitical context. Specifically, it will investigate how risk reduction may have influenced decisions about resource utilization. Evidence will be taken from plant remains, archaeological data, and ecological information.. Current data suggest that although a certain level of complexity was achieved in the Tensas based on nut and fruit management, with the advent and subsequent intensification of maize, Tensas Basin society became noticeably more complex. In contrast, farming of native seeds had fewer discernible social ramifications. These patterns require further substantiation and explanation. Plant remain analyses are an excellent means for testing hypotheses about the dynamics of the evolution of economic and cultural systems. This study, combined with application of predictions from particular models derived from evolutionary ecology, will help focus interpretation on the nature and consequences of the interaction between people and their food plants. The project/dissertation will expand an already impressive plant remain database and critically examine factors effecting foodways in the Tensas basin through a localized case study. Completion of this project will augment knowledge of the patterns and processes of food production during the time period spanning A.D. 700 - A.D. 1400, focusing on the effect of agriculture on indigenous economic strategies. Hypotheses concerning the local population's dependence on maize versus native resources will be examined on the basis of empirical evidence with consideration of the ecological and historical context in which these behavioral changes took place. Results of this study will provide insight into the interplay among environment, risk, and the evolution of subsistence and social structure, ultimately shedding light on developmental processes in other regions as well. The Tensas Paleoethnobotanical Project will provide some clarification of why and how these fisher-hunter-collectors eventually became farmers and in so doing, the study will fulfill the larger objective of developing explanations for the origin of food production in the Tensas Basin. Why the hunter-collector-fisher economy in the Tensas persisted as long as it did, and why local groups were seemingly so reluctant to embrace maize agriculture, will be discussed. This dissertation will provide a well studied example of sedentary and socially complex moundbuilders who subsequently adopted maize. Ecologically based explanations for the adoption of agriculture and the socio-political changes it brings will confront arguments of increased complexity in Mississippian times deriving from aggrandizing individuals striving for power. Additionally, explanations of population pressure and climatic change need not be invoked as exogenous variables for the shift to. Finally, data collection and hypothesis testing involved in this project will provide an empirical case study to aid evaluation of proposals for subsistence patterning in the region.