The Gazelle Project: Human-Gazelle (Gazella gazella) Interactions Across the Transition to Agriculture in the Southern Levant

NSF的资金将支持由Natalie Munro博士指导的一个为期三年的项目，该项目将记录人类对瞪羚种群的影响及其对西南亚动物驯化进程的影响。越来越多的证据表明，山羊、绵羊和猪的驯化是该地区北部和东部地区密集的人类狩猎传统的一个过程。尽管大多数人的注意力都集中在家养动物身上，但在南黎凡特，最常被猎杀的动物(山瞪羚；瞪羚)从未被驯养过。然而，考古瞪羚遗骸的证据迫使学者们争辩说，密集的狩猎导致了瞪羚种群结构和平均身体大小的变化。这些解释具有挑衅性，但不幸的是，数据收集程序的不兼容、相互矛盾的解释的公布、方法问题以及缺乏系统的研究产生了不一致的结果。这项拟议的研究旨在通过将标准化的数据收集协议、改进的方法和现代骨骼模型应用于一些来自南黎凡特的史前瞪羚收集来解决这些困难。需要这样一个研究计划，以确定人类对野生动物种群的潜在影响范围，而不考虑是否发生了驯化，并评估人类狩猎压力和气候变化在南黎凡特农业起源过程中的作用。特别是，这项研究将有助于在更广阔的肥沃新月地区进行动植物驯化的新兴区域背景。因此，它是对最近重大项目的补充，该项目追踪从密集的人类狩猎到绵羊、山羊和猪的动物管理和驯化的进化过程。该项目将通过整合从21,500-8,200卡BP之间的17个考古职业中获得的瞪羚标本和模型，系统地评估人与瞪羚相互作用的性质。这项研究将与以色列海法大学的盖伊·巴尔-奥兹合作进行，他已经为自己的项目部分获得了独立资金。该项目的优势在于它史无前例地检查了农艺、生物学、经济和生态数据集，以重建人类对过去瞪羚种群的影响。除上述研究目标外，该项目还将把不同族裔和宗教背景的以色列学生纳入其研究范围；在即将翻修的以色列海法市史前史前博物馆展示项目成果，供学童和公众接受教育和娱乐。该项目将提供一个论坛，对研究生进行大规模研究项目所需的各种活动的培训。该项目是以色列(海法大学)和美国(康涅狄格大学)机构之间的合作努力，旨在通过深入的研究和合作，在高级合作伙伴和学生合作伙伴之间建立新的持久的学术关系。

NSF funding will support a three year project directed by Dr. Natalie Munro that will document human impacts on gazelle populations and their implications for the process of animal domestication in southwest Asia. Accumulating evidence indicates that the domestication of goat, sheep and pig was a process that arose out of intensive human hunting traditions in the northern and eastern reaches of the region. Although most attention has focused on the domestic animals themselves, in the southern Levant, the most commonly hunted animal, (the mountain gazelle; Gazella gazella) was never domesticated. Nevertheless, evidence from archaeological gazelle remains has compelled scholars to argue that intensive hunting caused changes in gazelle population structures and average body-size. These interpretations are provocative, but unfortunately incompatible data collection procedures, the publication of conflicting interpretations, methodological problems, and the lack of systematic study have produced inconsistent results. The proposed research aims to address these difficulties by applying standardized data collection protocols, refined methodologies and modern skeletal models to a number of prehistoric gazelle collections from the southern Levant. Such a research program is needed to define the range of potential human impacts on wild animal populations, independent of whether domestication occurred, and assess the role of human hunting pressure and climatic change in the process of agricultural origins in the southern Levant. In particular, this research will contribute to the emerging regional context of plant and animal domestication across the broader Fertile Crescent. As such it complements significant recent projects tracing the evolutionary process from intensive human hunting, to animal management and domestication in sheep and goat and pig.The project will systematically assess the nature of human-gazelle interactions by integrating models derived from modern skeletal gazelle collections and gazelle remains obtained from 17 archaeological occupations dating between 21,500-8,200 cal BP. The research will be undertaken with the collaboration of Guy Bar-Oz from the University of Haifa in Israel, who has obtained independent funding for his portion of the project. The strength of this project lies in its unprecedented examination of taphonomic, biological, economic and ecological datasets to reconstruct human impacts on past gazelle populations. Beyond the preceding research goals, this project will integrate Israeli students from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds under its research umbrella; exhibit results from the project at the soon to be renovated Stekelis Museum of Prehistory in the city of Haifa, Israel, for the education and enjoyment of school children and the general public. The project will provide a forum to train graduate students in the full spectrum of activities required by a large-scale research project. The project is a cooperative effort between Israeli (University of Haifa) and American (University of Connecticut) institutions and seeks to cultivate new and lasting scholarly relationships between both senior and student partners through intensive research and collaboration.