Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Coastal Resource Stability and Human Subsistence Adaptation

该项目的目标是研究沿海人类社会如何在河口-泻湖环境中积极维持生态系统的稳定。这是一个博士论文项目，将允许联合首席研究员为他们的论文获得数据。可持续的沿海资源开发是人类如何影响生态系统的一个重要方面，在当今全球范围内具有重要意义，因为沿海经济受到过度开发、污染和其他人为改变的威胁。向农业的过渡发生在一个条件与今天类似的时期，环境不断变化，人口规模不断扩大，人口大量迁徙。通过了解过去的人类社会如何在向农业过渡之前在河口-泻湖系统中创造资源稳定的条件，而不仅仅是不稳定的条件，可以确定在当今生态系统中重建或维持稳定的类似机制。人类生态位构建的规模，或人类对环境的修改过程，从未像现在这样极端，通过使用考古记录，可以确定生态位构建过程及其对资源可获得性的长期影响。这个项目将调查沿海资源的人类管理，或生态位构建，作为对集约农业延迟采用的可能解释。考古数据来自古代贝丘遗址。这些贝丘遗址与远古时期居住在该地区的一群沿海觅食者有关。利用动物考古鱼类遗骸，调查人员将测试两种形式的沿海资源生态位构建：增加鱼类种群营养结构的稳定性和改变鱼类收获季节。他们将结合鱼类饮食和营养水平的测量以及鱼类收获的季节，以了解在向农业过渡之前，社会如何维持沿海生态系统的稳定。这些数据将扩大对过渡到农业的条件变化的了解，特别是在沿海社会，并将考古数据与当今鱼类种群的数据直接联系起来。该项目不仅将提供考古学家感兴趣的数据，而且还将提供当地沿海居民和当今生态学家感兴趣的数据，因为它与在环境条件变化和人类捕鱼压力增加的背景下支持当今河口-泻湖环境有关。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The goal of this project is to examine how coastal human societies actively maintain ecosystem stability within estuarine-lagoon environments. This is a doctoral dissertation project which will permit the co Principal Investigator to obtain data for their dissertation thesis. Sustainable coastal resource exploitation is an important aspect of how human populations influence ecosystems, and is relevant on a global scale today as coastal economies are threatened by overexploitation, pollution, and other human-caused modifications. The transition to agriculture occurred during a time with conditions analogous to those today, with changing environment, increasing population sizes, and substantial human migration. By understanding how past human societies created conditions of resource stability, not just instability, in estuarine-lagoon systems prior to the transition to agriculture, allows the identification of similar mechanisms for recreating or maintaining stability in present-day ecosystems. The magnitude of human niche construction, or the process of human modification of the environment, has never been more extreme as it is at present and by using the archaeological record, niche construction processes and their long-term effects on resource availability can be identified.This project will investigate human management of coastal resources, or niche construction, as a possible explanation for the delayed adoption of intensive agriculture. The archaeological data comes from ancient shell mound contexts.These shell mound sites are associated with, a group of coastal foragers who lived in the region during the Archaic period. Using zooarchaeological fish remains, the investigators will test for two forms of coastal resource niche construction: increasing stability in the trophic structure of the fish population and changing the season of fish harvest. They will combine measures of fish diet and trophic level along with the season of fish harvest to understand how the society maintained coastal ecosystem stability prior to the transition to agriculture. These data will expand the understanding of the variability in conditions leading up to the transition to agriculture, especially in coastal societies, and directly link archaeological data to that of present-day fish populations. This project will provide data of interest not only to archaeologists, but to the local coastal inhabitants and present-day ecologists, given its relevance to supporting present-day estuarine-lagoon environments within the context of changing environmental conditions and increased human fishing pressures.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.