Anthropogenic Landscape Effects And Social Organization Of Food Foraging And Production In A Variable Environment

了解人们如何在不断变化的社会和环境条件下获得食物和维持粮食安全，对于了解过去的人类社会和探索当代社会维持食物供应的方法具有重要意义。考古数据集是研究这一问题的理想工具，它记录了人们吃的食物以及获得这些食物的途径如何在几个世纪内发生变化。随着时间的推移，史前人口增加或减少;平均降水量和温度变化;可种植的农作物变化;野生植物和动物的丰度因狩猎，收获和气候变化而变化。史前人类对这些变化的反应是调整他们获取食物的方法，一起搬到大村庄或分散到小定居点，并迁移到新的地点。通过研究史前案例，考古学家可以确定在贫瘠的年份维持村庄和社区以及利用有利条件的技术。重要的是，考古学家还可以确定在食物紧张时期未能维持社区的技术。这些信息对于现代社区和政府机构规划影响粮食供应的经济，气候或其他压力具有潜在价值。例如，了解人们如何在荒年将不知名的野生食物整合到农业生产系统中，可以为社区、州或地区层面的公共规划提供有用的类比，以促进社区、人口和政治稳定。这项研究的结果将使许多领域的研究人员感兴趣，他们将研究在气候条件变化和人口变化的情况下维持粮食安全的方法。这项研究将评估与三个主要问题有关的农业和觅食的变化。首先，它将研究来自多个史前考古遗址和时间段的增加努力和依赖农业的证据。然后，研究人员将利用这些信息来研究人口水平和农业投资的变化如何影响史前定居点周围地区的木材，食用植物和狩猎动物物种的可用性，包括受负面影响的物种在人口下降期间如何恢复。最后，该项目将研究家庭专业化种植农作物或觅食野生资源的变化与村庄规模，农业集约化和野生资源可用性的变化。数据将来自新墨西哥州西南部80个史前考古遗址的烧焦的食用植物遗骸、木炭和动物骨骼，这些遗址的年代从公元150年到1400年。一些数据将从未发表的手稿中获得，其中包含迄今为止尚未广泛使用的分析。此外，还将分析335个先前未分析的浮选样品和8个先前未分析的来自旧发掘的动物骨组合。系统地研究来自众多网站和长时间段的数据将提供关于人们如何？他们的活动影响到他们可获得的食物资源，包括确定获得长期稳定食物的方式。 研究结果将对考古学家以及对粮食安全和可持续发展感兴趣的科学家和决策者具有重要意义。

Understanding how people acquire food and maintain food security under changing social and environmental conditions has important implications for both understanding past human societies and exploring ways for contemporary societies to maintain access to food supplies. Archaeological datasets are ideal for examining this issue, providing a record of the foods people ate and how access to those foods changed at a scale of many centuries. Over time, prehistoric populations increase or decrease; average precipitation and temperatures vary; the agricultural crops available for planting change; and the abundance of wild plants and animals vary in response to hunting, harvesting, and climate variation. Prehistoric people responded to those changes by adapting their methods of acquiring food, by moving together into large villages or dispersing to small settlements, and by migrating to new locations. By studying prehistoric cases, archaeologists can identify techniques that worked well for sustaining villages and communities during lean years and for taking advantage of favorable conditions. Importantly, archaeologists can also identify techniques that failed to sustain communities during periods of food stress. This information is potentially valuable for modern communities and government agencies planning for economic, climate, or other stresses that affect food availability. For example, knowing how people integrate obscure wild foods into agricultural production systems during lean years may provide useful analogs for public planning at the community, state or regional level to promote community, population, and political stability in times of crisis. The results of this study will interest researchers in many fields investigating ways of maintaining food security in the face of changing climate conditions and shifting human populations. This research will assess changes in farming and foraging in relation to three major issues. First, it will examine evidence for increased effort and dependence on agriculture from multiple prehistoric archaeological sites and time periods. Researchers will then use this information to examine how changes in human population levels and investment in agriculture affected timber, food plant, and game animal species availability in the areas around prehistoric settlements, including how negatively impacted species may have recovered during periods of human population decline. Finally, the project will examine how household specialization in farming crops or foraging for wild resources varied in relation to village size, agricultural intensification, and changes in wild resource availability. Data will come from charred food plant remains, wood charcoal, and animal bone from 80 previously-excavated prehistoric archaeological sites in southwestern New Mexico spanning the period from A.D. 150 to1400. Some of the data will be obtained from unpublished manuscripts containing analyses not widely available until now. In addition, 335 previously unanalyzed flotation samples and 8 previously unanalyzed animal bone assemblages from older excavations will be analyzed. Systematically examining data from numerous sites and a long time period will provide new insights on how people?s activities influence the food resources available to them, including identifying ways of acquiring food that were stable for long periods. The results will be important for archaeologists and for scientists and policymakers interested in food security and sustainable development.