Collaborative Research: Reconstructing Domestication and Landscape Management Processes

从狩猎和采集到农业的转变是人类历史上最重要的变化之一，世界各地的学者，跨越多个学科，致力于理解这一过程是如何以及为什么发生的。南美洲的安第斯山脉被认为是人类驯化的中心之一，提供了一些世界上最重要的食物，包括土豆和藜麦，美洲驼和羊驼的羊毛支持着纺织业。然而，由于研究数量较少，我们对驯化过程和农业承诺的认识落后于其他地区。迪金森学院的玛丽亚·布鲁诺博士、宾夕法尼亚州立大学的何塞·卡普里莱斯博士和加州大学伯克利分校的克里斯汀·哈斯托夫博士将在南美洲安第斯山脉的的的喀喀湖盆地东南岸调查从狩猎和采集到农业的转变。通过新的考古发掘和专业分析，这项由北美和玻利维亚专家组成的多学科团队的合作调查将为本科生和研究生提供多种机会，培养和发展考古领域和实验室程序的技能。该项目还将涉及当地土著艾马拉社区的积极参与，他们的传统生存和土地使用方式日益受到环境退化和全球化的影响。当地高中学生将接受培训，参与研究并制作视频，说明研究方法和数据解释，同时记录他们的地点和社区的历史。该项目将与当地机构合作，促进以文化遗产为基础的当地旅游活动。该项目将为博物馆和高中制作教育海报，并印刷和分发有关城市、农业、畜牧业和渔业社区近四千年累积资源利用的最新信息的资料小册子，这些资料创造了一个复杂的社会环境系统，其景观规模的巨大变化至今仍然可见。安第斯山脉中南部的的的喀喀湖盆地维持了西半球前哥伦布时期最高的人口密度。它被认为是作物驯化和早期农业的中心。为了研究该盆地粮食生产的开始和景观改变，研究人员将在玻利维亚塔拉科半岛的奇里帕、奇亚拉玛亚和奇里帕塔遗址进行考古发掘，重点是早期形成时期（公元前1500-800年）。具体来说，他们将寻求回答驯化植物和动物物种的承诺的性质和时间，以及气候变化在促进或限制这一进程中的作用。为了评估这些问题，一个专家小组将对植物和动物遗骸进行详细分析，以反映它们的使用和管理随时间的变化。一项严格的放射性碳定年计划将允许将这些变化与过去气候变化的新记录进行比较，除了考古记录中记录的社会和政治变革之外，还可以进一步讨论当地和全球人类向农业的过渡。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is one of the most significant changes in human history, and scholars world-wide, across multiple disciplines are engaged in understanding how and why this process took place. The South American Andes are considered to be one of the centers of domestication providing some of the world's most important foods, including potatoes and quinoa, and wool from llamas and alpacas support textile industries. Yet, our knowledge of the processes of domestication and the commitment to agriculture lags behind other regions due to small number of studies. Dr. Maria Bruno, of Dickinson College, Dr. Jose Capriles, of The Pennsylvania State University, and Dr. Christine Hastorf, of the University of California, Berkeley, will investigate the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture in the southeastern shore of Lake Titicaca basin in the South American Andes. Through new archaeological excavations and specialized analyses, this collaborative investigation, made up of a multidisciplinary team of North American and Bolivian specialists, will foster multiple opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to train and develop skills in archaeological field and laboratory procedures. The project will also involve the active participation of local indigenous Aymara communities whose traditional subsistence and land use practices have been increasingly impacted by environmental degradation and globalization. Local high school students will be trained to participate in research and create videos that illustrate research methods and data interpretation, while documenting the histories of their sites and communities. In conjunction with local agencies, the project will help to promote on-going local tourism initiatives based on cultural patrimony. The project will make educational posters for the museum and high school, and print and distribute informative pamphlets with updated information regarding nearly four millennia of cumulative resource utilization by urban, farming, herding and fishing communities that created a complex socio-environmental system of dramatic landscape-scale transformations that are still visible today. The Lake Titicaca basin of the south-central Andes sustained some of the highest pre-Columbian population densities in the western hemisphere. It is recognized as a center of crop domestication and early agriculture. To investigate the onset of food production and landscape modification in the basin, the researchers will carry out archaeological excavations focusing on the Early Formative Period (1500-800 BCE) at the sites of Chiripa, Chiaramaya and Chiripata, located in the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia. Specifically, they will seek to answer what was the nature and timing of a commitment to domesticated plant and animal species and what was the role of climate change in either facilitating or constraining this process. To evaluate these questions, a team of specialists will carry out detailed analyses of plant and animals remains that reflect the changes in their use and management through time. A rigorous program of radiocarbon dating will permit to compare these changes to new records of past climate change, in addition to social and political transformations recorded in the archaeological record, to further on-going discussion about the transition to agriculture by humans locally and globally.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.