Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Factors Which Underlie Long Term Cultural Change

在丹尼尔·阿德勒博士的监督下，杰森·吉尔将研究石器（石器）技术的变化，以测试与新技术的出现以及智人和尼安德特人的进化有关的行为和地理假设。该项目将检验先前研究提出的人口膨胀（移民）和自主创新的竞争性假设，以促进新技术的出现。研究人员将采用定量方法来研究技术变化在多大程度上可归因于文化连续性或文化替代。石质人工制品形态反映了文化偏好和功能考虑，因此它们代表了过去行为的普遍存在，巨大和持久的记录，可用于调查变化是如何发生的。澄清技术如何以及为什么变化对于解决行为在人类进化的复杂叙述中所扮演的角色至关重要。该项目将支持Co-PI（Jayson Gill）的博士培训和学生的定量技术培训。本研究产生的数据将作为参考材料免费在线提供，结果将通过会议演示、期刊文章和公众参与广泛传播。 本研究利用文化进化理论，优化建模，并从实验组装的见解，以解决在过去的技术，试图解开社会传播的影响，功能的考虑，和原材料的选择上的形状的石器时代的时间模式。考古组合在两个地区的文件出现的新的行为和变化都在此之前和之后的外观。来自两个地区的五个石器组合将进行三维扫描和多元统计方法，作为一种手段，以确定不同的石器技术之间的形态关系，通过时间。结果将进行评估，对竞争的迁移和创新假设的形态预期。此外，基于形状的统计结果将根据实验工作的预期进行评估，并将确定技术变化与工具包功能熟练程度变化之间的关系，以适应环境中广泛的时间变化。技术之间的形态关系，或缺乏这种关系，可以作为石器生产行为的区域连续性程度的代理。确定连续性或突然变化，以及确定促进采用新技术的因素，对于扩大目前对移徙、行为适应、该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的支持。影响审查标准。

Under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Adler, Jayson Gill will study variability in stone tool (lithic) technology to test behavioral and geographic hypotheses related to the appearance of novel technologies and the the evolution of both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. This project will test the competing hypotheses of population expansion (migration) and independent innovation for the appearance of new technologies as proposed by prior research. The researchers will apply a quantitative approach to studying the degree to which changes in technology can be attributed to cultural continuity or cultural replacement. Lithic artifact morphology reflects both cultural preferences and functional considerations, thus they represent a ubiquitous, vast, and durable record of past behaviors that can be utilized to investigate how changes occur. Clarifying how and why technology changes is essential to addressing the role that behavior plays in the complex narrative of human evolution. This project will support the doctoral training of the Co-PI (Jayson Gill) and training in quantitative techniques for students. Data produced in this study will be made freely available online as reference material and results will be widely disseminated through conference presentations, journal articles, and public engagement. This research utilizes cultural evolutionary theory, optimality modeling, and insights from experimental assemblages to address chronological patterns in past technologies in an attempt to disentangle the effects of social transmission, functional considerations, and raw material choice on the shape of lithics. Archaeological assemblages in two regions document the appearance of novel behaviors and variability both proceeding and following this appearance. Five lithic assemblages from two regions will be subjected to three-dimensional scanning and multivariate statistical methods as a means to identify the morphological relationships between different lithic technologies through time. The results will be evaluated against the morphological expectations in competing migration and innovation hypotheses. Further, results of shape-based statistics will be assessed against expectations derived from experimental work and will identify the relationship between changes in technology and changes in the functional proficiency of tool kits against a backdrop of broad chronological changes in the environment. Morphological relationships, or the lack thereof, between technologies can serve as a proxy for the degree of regional continuity in lithic production behaviors. Establishing continuity or abrupt change, as well as identifying the factors promoting the adoption of new technologies is vital to expanding the current understanding of the role that migration, behavioral adaptation, and innovation have on group variation during this significant period in human evolution.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.