Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Ecology of Early Farming: A Mogollon Case Study

在Margaret C博士的指导下。纳尔逊，史蒂夫斯旺森将分析考古，环境和基于卫星的数据，以回答有关人类对环境的影响，在农业在美国西南部的发展问题。在西部新墨西哥州和东部亚利桑那州的莫戈隆边缘地区，土著群体之间的过渡到农业公元200年和公元1000年，标志着人与环境关系的改变。 虽然人们通常认为农业的采用迅速导致了定居和村庄的形成，但在莫戈隆地区，早期的农业定居点实际上仍然很小，居民移动的，在农业采用后的几百年里。 这些早期的农业用地被反复占用和废弃了数百年，只有少数发展成为农业村庄公元1000年。 在美国西南部，在向农业过渡的早期尝试为这些长期的人类环境动态提供了丰富的数据库。 通过补充考古数据与最新的卫星环境数据，这项研究将探讨环境恢复力，土地利用的环境影响，和村庄形成的相互关联的过程。考古记录可以提供关键的见解从狩猎和采集到农业的过渡，以及在干旱景观的农业战略的生态学。 在Mogollon地区，有一些遗址跨越了800年的农业过渡。 在这些遗址中的每一个，都有一系列不同的职业，每个职业一次只有几所房子。 通过检查不同年代房屋中的花粉和焚烧过的植物遗骸，人们可以为这些遗址建立一个环境史，记录植被干扰（如森林砍伐）以及随着时间的推移植被恢复。 将其与基于卫星的关于现代植被群落的数据相结合，就可以对可能影响沉积和农业发展的环境因素进行评估。 首先，早期农业对环境的影响是否影响了农民在一个地方长期成功生活的能力？ 第二，景观上的一些地方是否天生就更能抵抗环境退化，我们是否在那里看到了农业村庄的发展？ 最后，气候在影响早期农业定居点的位置和持久性方面发挥了什么作用？从这项研究中获得的见解不仅对社会科学家有用：它们对开发社会面临的现代环境问题的解决方案具有更广泛的影响。 在人类土地使用做法对环境的影响已达到危及全球生活质量的严重程度之际，必须认识到，为解决当前环境危机而提出的解决办法必须处理社会文化因素以及长期可持续性问题，否则将不会成功。 这项研究特别适用于人口或环境背景相似的地区，例如移徙或移动的人口，或世界干旱地区。 通过研究长期数据集，这项研究可以为地球仪干旱环境中移动的土地利用做法的可持续性问题提供科学信息。 鉴于最近和正在发生的世界各地干旱环境中流离失所人口的许多情况，这类信息是及时的。

Under the supervision of Dr. Margaret C. Nelson, Steve Swanson will analyze archaeological, environmental, and satellite-based data to answer questions about human impacts on the environment during the development of agriculture in the Southwestern U.S. In the Mogollon Rim area of western New Mexico and eastern Arizona, native groups made the transition to agriculture between 200 A.D. and 1000 A.D., marking a change in the relationship between people and their environment. While it is often assumed that the adoption of agriculture rapidly leads to sedentism and village formation, in the Mogollon region the early farming settlements actually remained small and residents mobile, for hundreds of years after the adoption of agriculture. These early agricultural sites were repeatedly occupied and abandoned for hundreds of years, and only a few developed into agricultural villages by AD 1000. In the US Southwest, early attempts at farming during the transition to agriculture provide a rich database on these long-term human-environment dynamics. By supplementing the archaeological data with recent satellite-based environmental data, this research will explore the inter-related processes of environmental resilience, environmental impact of land use, and of village formation.The archaeological record can provide critical insights into the transition from hunting and gathering to farming, as well as the ecology of farming strategies in an arid landscape. In the Mogollon area there are sites that span the 800-year transition to agriculture. At each of these sites, there is a series of different occupations, each with only a few houses at a time. By examining pollen and burned plant remains in houses of different ages, one can develop an environmental history for the sites, documenting vegetation disturbance (such as deforestation) as well as vegetation recovery over time. Combining this with satellite-based data on modern vegetation communities permits an assessment of the environmental factors that might influence the development of sedentism and agriculture. First, did the environmental impacts of early agriculture influence the ability of farmers to successfully live in a single place for long periods of time? Second, are some places on the landscape inherently more resistant to environmental degradation, and is that where we see the development of farming villages? Finally, what role does climate play in influencing the location and persistence of early farming settlements?Insights gained from this research are not only useful for social scientists: they have broader implications for developing solutions to modern environmental problems facing society. At a time when the environmental impacts of human land use practices are reaching the level of a critical, global-scale danger to quality of life, it is important to recognize that proposed solutions to current environmental crises must address sociocultural factors as well as issues of long-term sustainability, or they will be unsuccessful. This research is especially applicable to regions with a similar demographic or environmental context, such as for migrant or mobile populations, or in arid regions of the world. By examining a long-term dataset, this study can contribute scientific information to the problem of the sustainability of mobile land use practices in arid environments across the globe. Information of this sort is timely given the numerous recent and ongoing instances of displaced populations in arid environments worldwide.