Land Use and Chronology and GeoPolitical Processes Among Late Prehistoric Communal Bison Hunters, Montana

在国家科学基金会的支持下，玛丽亚·尼维斯·泽德诺博士将与黑脚部落历史保护办公室合作，建立一份史前晚期野牛传动系统和捕杀地点的年表，以及位于蒙大拿州两条梅迪辛德河的相关露营地。这份年表的目的是确定相互作用的几代人是否使用了多个传动系统和捕杀地点，如果是的话，这些地点和周围环境的管理是否导致季节性流动的集体野牛猎人形成了领地。更广泛地说，这项研究将完善对大型猎人地缘政治及其在欧洲商品和人进入西北平原之前在景观中的物质印记的理解。2009年至2012年，作为库托伊斯考古项目的一部分，泽德尼奥和团队对将纳入山谷年表的遗址进行了调查和绘制，库托伊斯考古项目得到了美国国家科学基金会(BCS 0918081)的部分资助。这项调查为14个野牛传动系统的规划、建设和维护提供了大量证据。这些遗址是大的(9-16平方公里)漏斗状的表面石头特征排列，将野牛聚集的盆地连接到悬崖或“跳跃”。虽然有强有力的经验证据表明，这些网站是在相同的模板和建筑传统下建造的，但它们的使用范围是否重叠尚不清楚。拟议的研究将(1)从建筑特征获得光学发光年代，(2)从与传动系统和壁炉有关的野牛骨骼暴露中获得放射性碳年代，(3)建立调查区中心的两个古火评估点的年表，以确定在草原管理中是否与野牛狩猎点同时使用火。狩猎-采集领土和领地是人类学中最经久不衰的话题。拟议的年表将扩大步行者对大型动物猎人土地保有权的理解，并回答有关公共野牛猎人如何在一年中有一半的时间不在的情况下保持其主要狩猎场的使用和占用的连续性的问题。将用于连接不同考古、年代和古生态数据的空间和时间尺度以前没有应用于该地区的晚期史前，因此该项目将作为一个概念和分析模型在未来进行测试或争辩。库托伊斯考古项目自成立以来，一直明确致力于将考古服务于黑脚部落，以便他们的传统知识可以得到科学数据的补充和丰富。该项目将有助于确定黑脚人在山谷中的古老存在，并维护他们保护文化资源的权利。该项目仍然致力于为学生、部落准考古学家和两个药谷的当地居民提供考古培训，并激励美洲原住民青年选择考古学作为他们未来的职业。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Maria Nieves Zedeño, in partnership with the Blackfeet Tribal Historic Preservation Office, will build a chronology of Late Prehistoric bison driveline systems and kill sites, as well as associated campsites located on the Two Medicine River, Montana. The objective of this chronology is to ascertain whether multiple driveline systems and kill sites were used by interacting generations and, if so, whether the management of these sites and the surrounding environment led to the formation of territories among seasonally mobile communal bison hunters. More broadly, this research will refine the understanding of big-game hunter geopolitics and its material imprint in the landscape prior to the arrival of European goods and people into the northwestern Plains.The sites to be incorporated in the valley-wide chronology were surveyed and mapped by Zedeño and team in 2009-2012 as part of the Kutoyis Archaeological Project, which has been partially funded by NSF (BCS 0918081). The survey produced abundant evidence of planning, construction, and maintenance of fourteen bison driveline systems. These sites are large (9-16 km sq) funnel-like arrangements of surface stone features that connected bison gathering basins to a cliff or "jump." While there is strong empirical evidence that these sites were built under the same template and architectural tradition, it is yet unknown whether their use-span overlapped. The proposed research will (1) obtain optical lumenescence dates from architectural features, (2) obtain radiocarbon dates from bison bone exposures associated with the driveline systems and from hearths and, (3) establish the chronology of two paleo-fire assessment sites in the heart of the survey area, to determine whether fire was used in grassland management at the same time as the bison hunting sites. Hunter-gatherer territories and territoriality are among the most enduring topics in anthropology. The proposed chronology will expand the understanding of land tenure among pedestrian big game hunters, and answer questions about how communal bison hunters maintained continuity of use and occupation of their prime hunting grounds while being away one-half of the year. The spatial and temporal scales that will be used to link diverse archaeological, chronological, and paleo-ecological data have not been previously applied to the late prehistory of this region and thus this project will stand as a conceptual and analytical model to be tested, or contested, in the future. Since its inception, the Kutoyis Archaeological Project has been explicitly committed to placing archaeology at the service of the Blackfeet Tribe so that their traditional knowledge may be complemented and enriched with scientific data. This project will help to establish the antiquity of the Blackfeet's presence in the valley and to assert their rights to protect cultural resources. This project remains committed to providing archaeological training to students, tribal para-archaeologists, and local residents of the Two Medicine Valley and to inspiring Native American youth to select archaeology as their future career.