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

在丹尼尔·阿德勒博士的指导下，杰森·吉尔将研究石器技术的可变性，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。本项目将检验先前研究提出的人口扩张（迁移）和新技术出现的自主创新的竞争性假设。研究人员将采用定量方法来研究技术变化可归因于文化连续性或文化替代的程度。石器人工制品的形态反映了文化偏好和功能考虑，因此它们代表了一个无处不在的、巨大的、持久的过去行为记录，可以用来研究变化是如何发生的。澄清技术变化的方式和原因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。该项目将支持副主任（杰森·吉尔）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资料在网上免费提供，研究结果将通过会议报告、期刊文章和公众参与广泛传播。本研究利用文化进化理论、最优性模型和来自实验组合的见解来解决过去技术的时间模式，试图理清社会传播、功能考虑和原材料选择对石器形状的影响。两个地区的考古组合记录了新行为的出现以及在此出现之前和之后的变异性。本文将对来自两个地区的五组岩样进行三维扫描和多元统计，以确定不同岩样技术之间的形态关系。结果将根据竞争迁移和创新假设的形态学期望进行评估。此外，将根据从实验工作中得出的期望来评估基于形状的统计结果，并将在环境按时间顺序广泛变化的背景下确定技术变化与工具箱功能熟练程度变化之间的关系。技术之间的形态关系或缺乏形态关系可以作为岩片生产行为区域连续性程度的代表。建立连续性或突变，以及确定促进采用新技术的因素，对于扩大当前对迁移、行为适应和创新在人类进化的这一重要时期对群体变异的作用的理解至关重要。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。

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.