CAREER: Human adaptations to changing environments: Supporting student education and research in anthropological isotopic methodologies

西顿霍尔大学（SHU）的朗达·奎因博士将调查过去的人类群体如何适应由全球气候扰动引起的资源可用性和环境变化。考古学和古人类学为气候和环境变化对人类系统的影响提供了一个深入的时间视角，可以用来阐明现代人类与环境的相互作用。奎因博士采用稳定同位素分析来描述过去人类饮食和环境条件下的流动性，并将利用她的研究项目吸引高中、本科生和刚开始的研究生进行实践研究和培训经验。在NSF CAREER的支持下，Quinn博士将为跨学科的本科生和/或研究生提供一个以实验室为基础的为期三周的暑期短期课程。学生将从上海大学，一个主要的本科教学学校，服务于不同社会经济和文化的学生群体，以及其他地区和/或合作机构。每年两个本科生实验室助教奖学金将为学生的研究项目发展提供进一步的机会。该项目还将通过SEED项目（美国化学会针对经济弱势年轻人的夏季研究项目）和纽约大学与新泽西州纽瓦克的北极星学院合作的体验式学习计划，将地区高中生纳入历史上代表性不足的人群的夏季和年度实验室研究项目。这些活动将为学生研究人员提供一个坚实的基础，通过人类学调查的视角来理解和批判性地评估稳定同位素数据。美国国家科学基金会CAREER基金的一部分将为Quinn博士的实验室提供增强的设施，以提高研究效率和教育基础设施，并丰富SHU的合作研究环境。奎因博士将把学生纳入她的三个相互关联的研究领域：人类进化的环境，人类饮食和流动性的环境影响，以及稳定同位素的实际研究。第一组项目将检查早期人类祖先的环境背景，以便更好地了解当地和全球环境因素对人类谱系中形态和行为变化的影响。在肯尼亚图尔卡纳盆地4-1 Ma的考古和古人类遗址中，利用古土壤和其他地质材料的稳定同位素分析来推断过去的植被群落和环境条件，重建了环境选择压力和栖息地偏好。第二个领域探索人类饮食和活动模式如何随着环境和气候的扰动而变化，重点是全新世沿海和岛屿考古遗址。在气候引起的生态系统崩溃期间，对史前人类饮食变化和流动性的研究主要集中在太平洋岛屿和佛罗里达沿海地区，并使用人类和动物骨骼材料的稳定同位素。第三个领域是通过对现代生态系统的实际研究来提高稳定同位素方法的分辨率。这些方法包括同位素表征现代水、土壤、植物和动物样本，以便在考古和古人类遗址附近以及类似环境中建立解释性框架。在奎因博士之前的野外工作中收集的样本将用于学生参与的实验室研究项目。

Dr. Rhonda Quinn, of Seton Hall University (SHU), will investigate how past human groups adapted to resource availability and environmental change caused by global climate perturbations. Archaeology and paleoanthropology offer a deep time perspective on the impact of climatic and environmental change on human systems and can be used to elucidate modern human-environment interactions. Dr. Quinn employs stable isotopic analysis to characterize past human diet and mobility in the context of environmental conditions and will use her research program to engage high school, undergraduate, and beginning graduate students with hands-on research and training experiences. With NSF CAREER support, Dr. Quinn will provide a laboratory-based, three-week summer short course for undergraduate and/or beginning graduate students across disciplines. Students will be drawn from SHU, a primarily undergraduate teaching school serving a diverse socio-economic and cultural student population, and other area and/or collaborative institutions. Two annual undergraduate laboratory assistantships will provide further opportunities for student research project development. This program will also incorporate area high school students into summer and yearly laboratory research projects from historically underrepresented populations through Project SEED (American Chemical Society's summer research program for economically disadvantaged young people) and SHU's Experiential Learning Initiative with North Star Academy in Newark, NJ. These activities will provide student researchers with a solid foundation for understanding and critically evaluating stable isotopic data through a lens of anthropological inquiry. A portion of NSF CAREER funding will provide enhanced facilities in Dr. Quinn's laboratory to increase research productivity and educational infrastructure and enrich the collaborative research environment at SHU. Dr. Quinn will incorporate students into her three interrelated research areas: environments of human evolution, environmental influences of human diet and mobility, and stable isotopic actualistic studies. The first set of projects will examine environmental contexts of early human ancestors in order to better understand what local and global environmental factors influenced morphological and behavioral changes in the human lineage. Environmental selective pressures and habitat preferences are reconstructed by employing stable isotopic analyses of paleosols and other geological materials to infer past vegetation communities and environmental conditions at archaeological and paleoanthropological sites spanning 4-1 Ma in the Turkana Basin, Kenya. The second area explores how human diet and mobility patterns have changed with environmental and climatic perturbations, with an emphasis on Holocene coastal and island archaeological sites. Studies of prehistoric human diet change and mobility are focused on Pacific Islands and coastal Florida during times of climatically induced ecosystem collapse and employ stable isotopes of human and faunal skeletal materials. The third area is concerned with increasing stable isotopic methodological resolution with actualistic studies of modern ecosystems. These include isotopically characterizing modern water, soil, plant and animal samples for building interpretative frameworks in the vicinity of archaeological and paleoanthropological sites and also from analogous environments. Samples collected during Dr. Quinn's prior fieldwork will be utilized for student-involved, laboratory-based research projects.