Doctoral Dissertation Research Award: The Effect Of Long Term Environmental Variation On Human Adaptation

这个项目调查了加州海峡岛觅食者和维持它们的海洋生态系统之间的动态长期相互作用。它将研究近海岸古海洋学条件，人类海洋资源利用和技术创新在过去10,000年的趋势。Erlandson和Ainis将通过考古学，稳定同位素和文化沉积物的统计分析来研究北美太平洋沿岸海洋人民生活方式的趋势，这些文化沉积物来自两个相邻的岩石庇护所遗址，由Chumash岛及其祖先在过去的13，000年中依次占据。海峡岛贝冢至少在很久以前就被航海的古印第安人殖民，在诸如海岸迁移假说等理论的出现中发挥了重要作用，该假说是美洲最初人口的可行解释。考古遗迹揭示了数千年来岛民如何与陆地和海洋生态系统互动并利用它们，为现代保护和管理方案提供了相关数据，这些方案往往受到相对较新和短期基线数据的限制。海洋软体动物的稳定同位素分析是一种经过验证的方法，可用于重建海洋条件和确定贝类收获的季节性，数据可用于重建定居模式和近岸古生态学。这些数据将被用来构建一个特定地点的近岸序列圣米格尔岛，并探讨古海表面温度（SST）模式和考古数据之间的相关性。这项研究将有助于更大的研究问题有关的古老性和多样性的水产资源的使用，资源的收获做法和人类对海洋生态系统的影响，岛屿环境的边缘化，流动模式，季节性的网站职业的一些最早的海洋太平洋沿岸的人的转变。作为该地区第一个长期重建的近岸SST序列，其结果将对考古学、历史生态学、古生态学、海洋生物学、海洋学、保护生物学和渔业管理等领域的各种研究问题产生重大影响。该项目还将通过俄勒冈州大学的岛屿和海岸考古实验室为学生提供动物群和考古计量分析方面的培训机会。圣米格尔岛300米长的海岸线将用于确定收获季节数据，并重建该地区最长的近岸SST序列。SST数据将与每个考古组成部分的主要贝类物种的相对比例和大小进行统计相关，同时考虑到所有分类群的物种特异性生物和生态信息以及小规模当地古海洋学条件。研究，使用稳定同位素分析的海洋贝壳，详细的动物考古学分析和统计措施，将允许强有力的推论生态变化和沿海觅食的适应性转变，提供一个代理的小规模海洋学变化在近岸栖息地，人类收获发生。这些数据将有助于一个不断增长的数据库，帮助考古学家破译在人类居住的13,000年期间海峡群岛上的潮间带觅食，海洋捕鱼和狩猎，人类流动和技术变革的复杂性质。

This project investigates dynamic long-term interactions between California Channel Island foragers and the marine ecosystems that sustained them. It will examine trends in nearshore paleooceanographic conditions, human marine resource use, and technological innovation over the past 10,000 years. Erlandson and Ainis will examine trends in the lifeways of maritime people of the Pacific Coast of North America through archaeological, stable isotope, and statistical analyses of cultural deposits from two adjacent rockshelter sites occupied sequentially by the Island Chumash and their ancestors over the past 13,000 years. Colonized at least that long ago by seafaring Paleoindians, Channel Island shell middens have played an important role in the emergence of theories such as the coastal migration hypothsis as a viable explanation for the initial peopling of the Americas. Archaeological remains reveal how islanders interacted with and utilized terrestrial and marine ecosystems for thousands of years, providing pertinent data for modern conservation and management programs that are often constrained by relatively recent and short-term baseline data. Stable isotope analysis of marine mollusks is a proven method for reconstructing oceanographic conditions and identifying the seasonality of shellfish harvest, data useful for reconstructing settlement patterns and nearshore paleoecology. These data will be used to construct a site-specific nearshore sequence for San Miguel Island and explore correlations between ancient sea surface temperature (SST) patterns and archaeological data. This study will contribute to larger research questions related to the antiquity and diversity of aquatic resource use, shifts in resource harvesting practices and human impacts on marine ecosystems, the perceived marginality of island environments, mobility patterns, seasonality of site occupations of some of the earliest maritime people of the Pacific Coast. As the first long-term reconstructed nearshore SST sequence for the region, the results will have significant implications for a variety of research questions in archaeology, historical ecology, paleoecology, marine biology, oceanography, conservation biology, and fisheries management. The project will also provide opportunities for student training in faunal and archaeometric analyses through the University of Oregon's Island and Coastal Archaeology Laboratory.Stable oxygen and carbon analysis of ~120 marine mollusk shells from 12 chronologically discrete components from three sites located within a ~300 m stretch of coastline on San Miguel Island will be used to determine season of harvest data and reconstruct the longest nearshore SST sequence for the region. SST data will be statistically correlated with relative proportions and sizes of dominant shellfish species from each archaeological component, taking into account species-specific biological and ecological information for all taxa, and small-scale local paleo-oceanographic conditions. Research that uses stable isotope analysis of marine shells, detailed zooarchaeological analysis, and statistical measures will allow strong inferences about ecological changes and the adaptive shifts of coastal foragers by providing a proxy for small-scale oceanographic variability in nearshore habitats where human harvesting was occurring. These data will contribute to a growing database that helps archaeologists decipher the complex nature of intertidal foraging, marine fishing and hunting, human mobility, and technological change on the Channel Islands during ~13,000 years of human habitation.