Doctoral Dissertation Research: Modeling Hunter-Gatherer Ceramic Production and Use: A Test Case From the Upper Texas Coastal Plain

拉金·胡德将在本杰明·菲茨休博士的指导下，对德克萨斯州北部沿海平原上的史前狩猎采集群体在史前晚期和接触时期(公元600年-1700年)制作的陶器进行研究。这项研究将澄清陶器在狩猎采集者中的生产和使用的作用，并将更好地了解陶器在史前社会中所扮演的不同角色。传统上，人类学家将陶器的生产和使用与自己生产食物的久坐社会的密集食物加工和储存任务联系在一起。最近的假说表明，陶瓷器皿的作用是获得和维持经济、社会和政治声望的工具。考古学家继续记录一些陶器制造和使用的例子，这些陶器制造和使用的群体相对流动，社会地位很低，他们狩猎和采集野生动物和植物。然而，陶瓷容器在狩猎采集社会和经济系统中的具体作用仍然不清楚，之前的假设也不能充分解释为什么一些狩猎采集社会会制造和使用陶器。德克萨斯州上海岸平原是进行这项研究的理想地区，因为那里有由土著猎人-渔民-采集者制作和使用的陶器的长期史前记录。这一地区的群体似乎保持了相对平等的狩猎-采集生活方式，尽管邻近的陶器生产团体，如卡多人，开始种植驯化的植物，在村庄定居，建造大型地球纪念碑，并按社会等级组织起来。为了确定陶器在德克萨斯州北部沿海平原的经济和社会作用，将使用以下方法对三个地点的陶片进行分析：1)分析5000多个陶片上的划痕、凹坑和其他类型的磨损，以确定食物和其他材料是如何在器皿中加工的；2)分析器皿体内的矿物包裹物(岩相学)，以检测有多少人在景观上移动；3)分析器皿体内吸收的有机残留物，以确定罐子所含食物资源的类型。为了确保遗址在年龄上具有可比性，陶片将使用热释光方法进行测年。这项研究将增加我们对德克萨斯州北部沿海平原史前生命的了解，该地区目前支持着密集的人口，继续显著改变着地形。这项研究的结果将通过向业余考古学家和学校团体(如哈里斯县考古学会和休斯顿自然科学博物馆)发表演讲的方式与公众分享。负责管理考古收藏品和遗址的联邦和州机构(例如，德克萨斯州的美国陆军工程兵团)的使命也将得到这项研究提供的关于该地区史前居民如何使用这些机构保护和管理的土地和文物的信息的加强。这项研究不仅将有助于联合PI(胡德)的研究生培训，也将有助于华盛顿大学的本科生和K-12学习，特别是在帮助大学生和中学生更好地理解假设检验，以及磨练他们的实验室分析和科学写作技能方面。

Larkin Hood, under the supervision of Dr. Benjamin Fitzhugh, will conduct a study of pottery made by prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups on the upper Texas coastal plain during the Late Prehistoric and Contact periods (600 A.D.-1700 A.D.). This research will clarify the role of pottery production and use among hunter-gatherers, and will provide a better understanding of the diverse roles pottery has played in prehistoric societies. Traditionally anthropologists have associated pottery production and use with the intensive food processing and storage tasks of sedentary societies who produce their own food. More recent hypotheses suggest that ceramic vessels function as tools to gain and maintain economic, social and political prestige. Archaeologists continue to document examples of pottery manufacture and use by relatively mobile groups with little social ranking who hunted and gathered wild game and plants. Yet the specific roles of ceramic containers in hunter-gatherer social and economic systems remain unclear, and previous hypotheses do not adequately explain why some hunter-gatherer societies make and use pottery. The upper Texas coastal plain is an ideal area for this study because it is home to a long-standing prehistoric record of pottery made and used by indigenous hunter-fisher-gatherers. Groups in this area appear to have maintained relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherer ways of life even as neighboring pottery-producing groups such as the Caddo began to cultivate domesticated plants, settle in villages, and create large earth monuments, and organize in social hierarchies. In order to determine the economic and social roles of pottery in upper Texas coastal plain, potsherds from three sites will be analyzed using the following methods: 1) analysis of scratches, pits, and other types of wear on over 5,000 potsherds to determine how food and other materials were processed in the vessels; 2) analysis of mineral inclusions (petrography) in the vessel bodies to detect how much people moved on the landscape; 3) analysis of organic residues absorbed in the vessel body to determine types of food resources the pots contained. In order to be certain that sites are comparable in age, potsherds will be dated using a thermoluminesence method.This research will increase our understanding of prehistoric life in the upper Texas coastal plain, an area currently supporting a dense human population which continues to significantly modify the landscape. The results of this research will be shared with the public via presentations to amateur archaeologists and school groups (e.g., Harris County Archeological Society, and the Houston Museum of Natural Science). The mission of federal and state agencies responsible for managing archaeological collections and sites (e.g., United States Army Corps of Engineers, State of Texas) will also be enhanced by information from this research about the ways prehistoric inhabitants of this region used the land and the artifacts that these agencies protect and curate. This research will not only contribute to the graduate training of the co-PI (Hood), but also to undergraduate and K-12 learning at the University of Washington, particularly in helping both college and middle school students better understand hypothesis testing, as well as to hone their laboratory analysis and scientific writing skills.