International Research Fellowship Program: Geographic Variation in Stable C and N Isotope Values of Edible Plants and Animals in Western Argentina & the Case for Prehistoric

07543553乌干达国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9到24个月的研究。该计划的奖励为联合研究提供了机会，并利用独特或互补的设施、专业知识和国外的实验条件。该奖项将支持Andrew Ugan博士与Adolfo Gil博士在阿根廷自然人类历史博物馆开展为期18个月的研究。农业的引入极大地改变了人类的健康和人口结构，并对全世界农业人民和非农业人民之间的相互作用产生了深远的影响。虽然玉米宏观化石和史前人类骨骼中13C同位素的富集表明，农业在大约2000年前被引入阿根廷门多萨南部，但同位素信号与玉米相似的野生资源的存在使得数据模棱两可。为了弄清这个问题，研究人员将沿着蒙特沙漠和安第斯科迪勒拉之间的样带，对53种野生动植物的碳和氮同位素特征进行采样。这些数据将用于计算它们对同一地区人类遗骸样本的饮食贡献，并更好地描述野生资源在史前饮食中的相对重要性。长期目标是解决玉米农业在形成史前经济和阿根廷西部农民-采集者互动中的作用，将那里的发展与美国东部大盆地的类似情况进行比较和对比，从而提高我们对这两个地区史前行为的理解。除了回答了一个重要的问题，这项研究还大大增加了我们对该地区的了解，使史前人类同位素化学的数据翻了一番，并增加了更多的可食用植物和动物的样本。这些数据将使研究附近地区人类健康和生存的研究人员以及研究非人类分类群的同位素化学和生态学的其他领域的研究人员感兴趣。该项目将为两国的持续研究和研究创造双边机会，并将提供对了解阿根廷西部和美国西部干旱环境的史前适应至关重要的比较数据。

0754353UganThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support an eighteen month research fellowship by Dr. Andrew Ugan to work with Dr. Adolfo Gil at the Museo de Historia Natural Antropologia in Argentina.The introduction of agriculture dramatically changed human health and demography and carried profound implications for interactions between farming and non-farming peoples worldwide. While corn macrofossils and enrichment of 13C isotopes in prehistoric human bone suggest farming was introduced to southern Mendoza, Argentina some 2,000 years ago, the presence of wild resources with isotopic signals similar to corn render the data equivocal. To help clarify this problem, the investigators will sample the carbon and nitrogen isotope signature of 53 wild plant and animal taxa along a transect between the Monte Desert and Andean Cordillera. The data will be used to calculate their dietary contributions to a sample of human remains from the same region and better characterize the relative importance of wild resources in prehistoric diets. The long-term goal is to resolve the role of corn agriculture in shaping prehistoric economies and farmer-forager interactions in western Argentina, compare and contrast developments there with a similar situation in the eastern Great Basin of the United States, and thereby improve our understanding of prehistoric behavior in both regions. In addition to speaking to an important question, this research adds substantially to our knowledge of the region, doubling the data on prehistoric human isotope chemistry and increasing samples of edible plants and animals even more. Those data will interest researchers studying human health and subsistence in nearby regions and researchers in other fields studying the isotope chemistry and ecology of non-human taxa. This project will establish bilateral opportunities for continuing research and study in both countries and will provide comparative data critical to understanding prehistoric adaptations to arid environments in both western Argentina and the western United States.