Paleoethnobotany of the Bonneville Basin, western North America

犹他州和内华达州的博内维尔盆地以洞穴遗址而闻名，这些洞穴遗址拥有跨越过去12000年的人类占领的深层考古记录。这些考古遗址包含大量保存完好的植物遗骸，这些植物是生活在这个干旱地区的狩猎采集者的主食。在国家科学基金会的支持下，大卫·罗德博士将对博内维尔盆地几个考古遗址的植物遗骸进行分析。这些藏品包括那些已经从危险洞穴、漂浮岛洞穴和驼背洞穴获得的藏品，以及将在博纳维尔庄园避难所获得的新藏品，博纳维尔庄园庇护所是内华达州东部的一个洞穴，目前正在进行挖掘，并具有贯穿全新世的详细考古序列。罗德博士将整合来自这些单独地点的数据，创建以植物为导向的生存策略变化的地区记录，并利用这一记录记录人们如何改变其生存策略，以应对气候驱动的长期可用植物资源变化。本研究涉及四个主要研究问题。首先，考古学家长期以来一直认为，波纳维尔盆地最早的居民在全新世非常早的时候采用了小种子作为主食，比西部山间的其他地方要早得多。这一假设将用危险洞穴和博纳维尔庄园庇护所的新证据重新检验。其次，植物使用的区域记录将显示觅食社会如何应对8000年前开始的大范围干旱和关键食物资源丰度的下降，这预示着觅食战略的发展，自那时以来，许多大盆地原住民群体一直到欧洲接触。第三，4000-3000年前的“新冰川”气候改善期预计将强烈影响生存资源的丰度和生存策略，潜在地导致饮食专业化，转向高回报的资源，或者，保留饮食的共性，但允许广泛的人口扩张。该地区的记录将允许在这些替代方案中测试适应资源丰富与适应完整性和人口增长的灵活性。最后，在过去1500年中发生的文化发展和生计转变，包括弗里蒙特农业社会的扩大和戈西特人随后恢复觅食，将使人们能够在干旱地区环境变化的背景下检验觅食和耕作战略与社会融合之间的权衡。为波纳维尔盆地开发的史前植物使用记录将是北美最长、最详细的记录之一，与世界上已知的任何此类序列一样好。它将与同样确定日期和详细的古环境记录进行比较，以解决区域史前和觅食社会适应不断变化的气候和旱地资源分布的重要问题。罗德博士将培训本科生和研究生，以及当地考古团体感兴趣的成员，学习古民族植物学技术，并将利用这项研究在犹他州危险洞穴州立公园进行公开展示，提高公众对考古资源在了解我们过去方面的价值的享受和欣赏。

The Bonneville Basin of Utah and Nevada is well known for cave sites having deep stratified archaeological records of human occupation spanning the last 12,000 years. These archaeological sites contain abundant well-preserved remains of plants that were mainstays of the diet of hunter-gatherers living in this arid region. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. David Rhode will carry out an analysis of plant remains from several archaeological sites in the Bonneville Basin. These collections include those already obtained from Danger Cave, Floating Island Cave, and Camelsback Cave, as well as new collections that will be made at Bonneville Estates Shelter, a cavern in eastern Nevada currently undergoing excavations and having a detailed archaeological sequence extending through the Holocene. Dr. Rhode will integrate data from these individual sites to create a regional record of changing plant-oriented subsistence strategies, and use this record to document how people changed their subsistence strategies in relation to long-term climate-driven changes in available plant resources. This research addresses four main research issues. First, archaeologists have long thought that the earliest inhabitants of the Bonneville Basin adopted small seeds as a dietary staple during the very early Holocene, much earlier than elsewhere in the intermountain West. This hypothesis will be re-examined using new evidence from Danger Cave and Bonneville Estates Shelter. Second, the regional record of plant use will show how foraging societies responded to widespread aridification and a decline of abundance of key food resources that began 8000 years ago, and which foreshadowed the development of foraging strategies that characterized many Great Basin native groups since then up until European contact. Third, a period of 'Neoglacial' climatic amelioration 4000-3000 years ago is expected to have strongly affected subsistence resource abundance and subsistence strategies, potentially resulting in dietary specialization toward high-return resources or, alternatively, retaining dietary generality but allowing a broad expansion of population. The regional record will allow tests among these alternatives of adaptive flexibility to resource abundance vs. adaptive integrity and population growth. Finally, cultural developments and subsistence shifts that occurred within the last 1500 years, including the expansion of Fremont farming societies and the subsequent return to foraging by Gosiute peoples, will allow a test of the tradeoffs between foraging and farming strategies and social integration in the context of regional environmental change in dryland environments. The record of prehistoric plant use developed for the Bonneville Basin will rank among the longest and most detailed available from North America and as good as any such sequence known worldwide. It will be compared with an equally well-dated and detailed paleoenvironmental record, to address important issues of regional prehistory and of adaptations of foraging societies to changing climates and resource distributions in drylands. Dr. Rhode will train undergraduate and graduate students, as well as interested members of local archaeological groups, in paleoethnobotanical techniques, and the research will be used to develop public displays at Utah's Danger Cave State Park, enhancing greater public enjoyment and appreciation of the value of archaeological resources in understanding of our past.