Understanding Long Term Relationships Between Environmental Change, Human Resilience And Territoriality

这个项目将研究人类领地在很深一段时间内的演变，并将使罗伯特·哈德、雷蒙德·毛尔丁、雅各布·弗里曼和黛博拉·博尔尼克博士能够解决关于领地系统出现的根本问题。虽然领地制度作为一个基本的社会进程的重要性是显而易见的，但人们对领地制度是如何出现以及为什么会出现却知之甚少。属地性与财产权的发展有关，社会科学家认为，属地性可加强渔业和森林等自然资源的可持续利用。人类学家知道，人类社会发展出各种各样的方法来维持和控制领土。一些狩猎-采集社会几乎不关心维护领土边界，而另一些社会则密切巡逻和保卫小块土地，但这种变化背后的条件还没有得到很好的理解。虽然关于人类领地的大部分信息来自人种学案例，但考古记录是关于数百代人以来人类领地性质变化的唯一数据来源。这些信息为当今世界发生的领土变化提供了新的背景，并有可能提供新的见解。30多年前，人类学家使用人种学数据提出了经济可防御性模型。该模型指出，随着资源变得更加密集和可预测，在充分竞争的情况下，个人将通过声称拥有某一领土的所有权来最大化自己的适应能力。在经济可防御性模型中，资源的生产率和可预测性决定了个体寻找食物所需的区域(即家园范围)。反过来，个人住宅范围的大小会改变在领地上投资的成本和收益。要采用属地性，个人必须花费时间和精力来监控边界和攻击入侵者。随着个人家庭范围的扩大，与限制访问相关的成本上升的速度比获得的好处更快。也就是说，在竞争平等的情况下，个人的家园范围越大，领土的净收益就越低。尽管这个模型很重要，但它还没有得到考古数据的严格评估。位于德克萨斯州海岸平原的莫希斯工厂是评估这一模式的理想地点。莫希斯位于距离海岸20英里的地方，代表着至少6000年的使用历史，并包含着领土转移的记录。这些收藏挖掘于75年前，保存着评估这一模型所需的数据。罗伯特·哈德博士(德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校)、雅各布·弗里曼博士(犹他州立大学)、雷蒙德·毛尔丁博士(德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校)和黛博拉·博尔尼克博士(德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校)将使用一系列实验室分析，包括放射性碳测年、碳、氮和锶同位素以及古代DNA来进行这项研究。这项工作将是区域数据库形成的基础，将有助于建立评估经济可防御性模型假设的一般程序，并将有助于理解产权的演变。最后，我们的方法将建立一个协议，使用最小破坏性的技术从经过管理的集合中构建数据集。该团队的工作将有助于研究生和博士后的教育，以及高中教师的外展计划。

This project will investigate the evolution of human territoriality across deep time and will allow Drs. Robert Hard, Raymond Mauldin, Jacob Freeman, and Deborah Bolnick to address fundamental questions about the emergence of territorial systems. How and why territorial systems emerge is poorly understood although its importance as a fundamental social process is clear. Territoriality has been linked to the development of property rights and social scientists have argued that territoriality enhances the sustainable use of natural resources such as fisheries and forests. Anthropologists know that human societies develop widely varying approaches to maintaining and holding territories. Some hunter-gatherer societies have little concern for maintaining territorial boundaries while others closely patrol and defend small patches, yet the conditions underlying this variability are not well understood. While most information about human territoriality comes from ethnographic cases, the archaeological record is the only source of data concerning the changing nature of human territoriality across hundreds of generations. Such information contextualizes and has the potential to shed new insight on territorial changes occurring in the world today.Over thirty years ago, anthropologists used ethnographic data to propose the Model of Economic Defensibility. The model states that as resources become more dense and predictable, given a sufficient level of competition, individuals will maximize their fitness by claiming ownership over a territory. In the Model of Economic Defensibility, the productivity and predictability of resources determines the area (i.e., the home-range) an individual needs to find food. In turn, the size of an individual's home-range changes the costs versus benefits of investment in territoriality. To adopt territoriality, individuals must expend time and energy to monitor boundaries and attack intruders. As an individual's home-range size increases, the costs associated with restricting access rise more quickly than the benefits attained. That is, holding competition equal, the larger an individual's home-range, the lower the net benefit of territoriality. Despite its fundamental importance, this model has yet to be rigorously evaluated with archaeological data. The Morhiss site, located in the Texas Coastal Plain, is an ideal setting to evaluate this model. Located 20 miles from the coast, Morhiss represents at least 6000 years of use, and contains a record of shifting territoriality. Excavated 75 years ago, these collections hold data necessary to evaluate this model. Drs. Robert Hard (University of Texas at San Antonio), Jacob Freeman (Utah State University), Raymond Mauldin (University of Texas at San Antonio), and Deborah Bolnick (University of Texas at Austin) will use an array of laboratory analyses including, radiocarbon dating, carbon, nitrogen, and strontium isotopes, and ancient DNA to conduct this research. This work will be fundamental to the formation of regional databases, will contribute to a general procedure to assess the assumptions of the Model of Economic Defensibility, and will contribute to understanding the evolution of property rights. Finally, our approach will establish a protocol to use minimally destructive techniques to build datasets from curated collections. The team's work will contribute to the education of graduate and postdoctoral students as well as an outreach program for high school teachers.