Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Evolution of Maritime Archaic Household in Northern Labrador

在David Meltzer博士和Torben Rick博士的监督下，Christopher Wolff将分析他在白点海事古迹考古研究期间收集的数据，白点位于萨格勒克湾以南的拉布拉多北部。白点包含了海洋古代活动的证据，可以追溯到该地区出现时(约6000-6500 B.P.)，直到它们消失(约3500 B.P.)。在这段时间里，海洋古代遗址和组合在社会和文化上变得更加复杂，表现在它们日益精致的停尸房存放、专门的狩猎技术，以及从小型独立洞穴到大型长屋的转变。本研究将通过考察多个时期的几个小顶楼和长屋的建筑和空间模式，来关注海上古代家庭组织的这些变化方面。对这些房屋的研究对于了解海洋古代社会的结构和性质很重要。它使研究人员能够获得有关家庭结构和规模的信息，以及这些家庭如何融入和反映更广泛的社会。在海洋古人这样一个日益复杂的狩猎-采集社会中，这样的考察将有助于我们理解家庭结构和功能与更广泛的社会变化之间的关系，包括社区居住模式的重组。例如，当家庭开始以更大的群体居住时，他们的住宅内部是否会有不同的组织？如果是这样，新的模式是否反映了社会地位、分工和/或专业活动领域的发展的变化。或者，它们是对环境变化的适应，例如气候、资源或群体互动？很可能，任何发展都是对多种变量的反应。如果家庭或社区组织没有发生重大变化，除了从原子式居住单元转移到形成长屋的相连单元之外，那么这可能表明，社会复杂性仅限于家庭之间为生存、仪式和/或分享信息和配偶而进行的合作，而不是延伸到永久的社会分化。这项研究将集中评估各种文化和环境因素对拉布拉多北部海上古代家庭和社会的相对影响，该项目将产生更广泛的影响，通过出版物和演示提供数据，加强对家庭规模上日益复杂的社会和文化对狩猎-采集者的影响的认识。除了海洋古生物之外，这项研究还将提供一个比较数据库，用来检查其他地区的复杂性，特别是在研究人员无法获得太平间存放和民族历史记载的地区。这项研究还将考察环境条件对家庭和社区组织的相对影响，为研究人员和今天在北方社会工作和生活并正在应对环境重大变化的人提供有用的历史和比较数据。最后，该项目将与区域团体合作，雇用当地因纽特学生，并向拉布拉多北部附近的社区介绍其调查结果，以帮助他们更多地了解他们所在地区的历史。

Under the supervision of Drs. David Meltzer and Torben Rick, Christopher Wolff will analyze data gathered during his archaeological research at Maritime Archaic sites at White Point, located in northern Labrador just south of Saglek Bay. White Point contains evidence of Maritime Archaic activity dating from the time of appearance in the region, ca. 6000-6500 B.P., to their disappearance, ca. 3500 B.P. Throughout this time Maritime Archaic sites and assemblages became more socially and culturally complex, demonstrated in their increasingly elaborate mortuary deposits, specialized hunting technology, and a shift from small individual pithouses to large longhouses. This research will focus on these changing aspects of Maritime Archaic household organization by examining the architecture and spatial patterning of several small pithouses and longhouses from multiple time periods. An examination of these houses is important to understanding the structure and nature of Maritime Archaic society. It allows researchers to gain information about family structure and size, and how those families integrated into and reflected broader society. In an increasingly complex hunter-gatherer society like the Maritime Archaic, such an examination will help us understand the relationships between household structure and function and broader societal changes, including the reorganization of community residential patterning. For instance, did households organize the interiors of their residences differently as they began to live in larger groups? If so, did the new patterns reflect changes in social status, the division of labor, and/or the development of specialized activity areas. Or, alternatively, were they adaptations to environmental changes, such as climate, resources, or group interaction? It is probable that any developments were responses to multiple variables. If there were no significant changes in household or community organization beyond shifting from living in atomistic residential units to connected units that formed longhouses, then it may suggest that social complexity was limited to interhousehold cooperation for subsistence, ritual, and/or the sharing of information and mates, and did not extend to permanent social differentiation. This research will concentrate on assessing the relative influences that various cultural and environmental factors had on Maritime Archaic households and society in northern Labrador.This project will have a broader impact by providing data, through publications and presentations, that will enhance knowledge on the effects of increasing social and cultural complexity on hunter-gatherers at the household scale. Beyond the Maritime Archaic, this research will provide a comparative database with which to examine complexity in other regions, particularly where mortuary deposits and ethnohistoric accounts are unavailable to researchers. This research will also examine the relative influence that environmental conditions have on household and community organization, providing useful historical and comparative data for researchers and people who work and live in northern societies today and are dealing with significant changes in their environments. Finally, this project will work with regional groups by hiring local Inuit students and presenting its findings to nearby communities in northern Labrador to help inform them more about the history of their region.