Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Costly Signaling in the Archaeological Record: A Case Study in Western North America

男人和女人的行为方式往往把自己的利益放在第一位，即使他们的决定似乎相互冲突。随着研究人员试图解释人们如何合作形成大多数社会群体中存在的性别分工，这一点变得越来越明显。对这一基本合作单位的传统解释表明，男人打猎，女人聚集是为了给家人提供食物。这一解释受到了质疑，因为它没有考虑到已知的人类行为，如狩猎和广泛分享危险和不可预测的资源，如大型猎物。成功的猎人不是养家糊口，而是通过拥有更多的配偶、子女和盟友，似乎获得了更多的间接好处。代价高昂的信号理论认为，这些行为是潜在属性的诚实信号，接收者通过知道社区中谁是最好的伴侣和盟友而从这些信号中获益。这表明，促使信号者和接收者做出觅食决定的是自身利益，而不是合作。在Donald Grayson博士的监督下，Jacob Fisher将调查男性昂贵的信号行为如何影响弗里蒙特人的社会和自然环境，弗里蒙特人是一个文化团体，在公元400年至1300年期间在北美大盆地东部和科罗拉多高原实践园艺和觅食生活方式。在多大程度上，人类基于昂贵的信号动机做出狩猎决定，而不是直接的经济回报，将取决于在一个地点发现的动物遗骸的种类及其在家庭之间的分布：一个物种的信号价值将由捕获动物的投入成本决定。据预测，那些最有效的信号物种将广泛分布在家庭之间。涉及的成本包括交通费用，因为受昂贵信号驱动的猎人可能会走得更远，以捕获稀有的、更有价值的猎物。运输将使用锶同位素比率(87Sr/86Sr)来检测，这是一种创新的方法，允许人们将骨骼材料来源到特定的地理位置。可靠的信号理论对于理解人类行为的可变性至关重要。因此，拟议的研究有可能促进我们对按性别划分的觅食策略、性别分工和家庭间合作的理解，这些对于我们理解过去和现在的社会关系以及人类对生物景观的影响是如此关键。归根结底，这将对我们理解性别是如何构成的产生重大影响，这是整个社会科学的一个主要主题，对不断讨论性别问题的普通公众具有重大意义。从该项目中获得的信息将通过一个网站以面向公众的方式介绍这项研究。公众演讲将在犹他州的弗里蒙特印第安州公园博物馆和西雅图的伯克博物馆进行。最后，本科生将在动物群分析过程中和在今后由合作--PI教授的课程中通过教材融入研究过程。

Men and women often behave in ways that put their own interests first even when their decisions appear to be in conflict with one another. This has become increasingly apparent as researchers try to explain how people cooperate to form the sexual division of labor present in most social groups. The traditional explanation of this basic unit of cooperation suggests that men hunt and women gather in order to provide their families with food. This explanation has been questioned because it does not account for known human behaviors, such as the hunting and widespread sharing of risky and unpredictable resources like large game. Instead of providing for his family, the successful hunter appears to receive more indirect benefits by having more spouses, children, and allies. Costly signaling theory argues that these acts serve as honest signals of underlying attributes, and receivers gain from these signals by knowing who the best mates and allies are in the community. This suggests that it is self-interest and not cooperation that is motivating foraging decisions among signalers and receivers. Under the supervision of Dr. Donald Grayson, Jacob Fisher will investigate how male costly signaling behavior impacted the social and natural environment of the Fremont, a cultural group practicing both horticulture and foraging lifeways in the eastern Great Basin and Colorado Plateau of North America between AD 400 and 1300. The degree to which men were making hunting decisions based on costly signaling motivations instead of immediate economic returns will be determined by the kinds of animal remains found within a site and their distributions between households: the signaling value of a species will be determined by the costs invested in capturing the animals. Those species that are the most effective signals are predicted to be distributed widely between households. The costs involved include transportation, as hunters motivated by costly signaling may travel farther to capture rare, more valued game. Transportation will be detected using strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr), an innovative approach that allows one to source skeletal materials to specific geographic localities.Costly signaling theory is critical for understanding variability in human behavior. As such, the proposed research has the potential of advancing our understanding of gendered foraging strategies, sexual division of labor, and inter-household cooperation that are so critical to our understanding of past and present social relationships and human impacts on the biotic landscape. Ultimately, this will have significant impact on our understanding of how gender is constructed, a major topic throughout the social sciences and of major importance to the general public where issues of gender are continually discussed. The information gained from this project will be disseminated through a website that describes the research in a public-oriented fashion. Public talks will be conducted at the Fremont Indian State Park museum in Utah and the Burke Museum in Seattle. Lastly, undergraduate students will be integrated into the research process, both during the faunal analysis and through teaching materials in future courses taught by the Co-PI.