Collaborative Research: Investigating Adaptive Strategies in Variable Environments

相对而言，很少有研究关注向以农业为基础的生活方式的转变。先前的研究表明，一些人从事早期园艺是这种转变的一部分。此外，世界范围内的环境证据表明，大约几千年前发生过一次全球性的干旱事件。在地方或区域尺度上，这一事件如何影响文化适应的发展和过程尚不清楚。文化群体如何决定在哪里定居，何时迁移，如何获取重要资源并与邻居互动，以及如何对当地景观的变化做出反应？通过考察多个生态区，该项目为评估气候变化的广泛超局部适应和局部影响提供了数据。这项研究扩大了对土地利用传统的理解，并为长期环境变化中的可持续生存战略提供了有价值的见解。该项目对本科生进行实地方法培训，而当地社区成员则参与研究的各个阶段。此外，学生和工作人员将开发一个博物馆展览和文化遗产中心，互补的K-12课程也正在开发中。该项目与一个跨学科研究团队合作，调查了狩猎采集者如何适应独特的微环境，包括淡水和咸水泻湖、沼泽森林、松树/橡树稀树草原和热带阔叶林，以及这些适应是如何受到全球干旱的影响的。目前的研究表明，这一时期的特点是居住在一系列微环境中的小型、相对流动的狩猎采集者群体，并采用各种生存和流动策略（包括早期农业）。该项目梳理了多方面的问题，即在研究区域周围的微环境中，哪种生存和流动/定居策略最成功，以及哪些区域最有利于早期农业实验。这项研究结合了地理空间分析、古生态研究、调查和试验挖掘、材料分析和放射性测年。由此产生的跨学科数据集使研究人员能够在地方到区域的尺度上研究人类-自然系统之间的耦合相互作用，并将提供一个模型，通过该模型可以进行进一步的研究，以增强更广泛的理解。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。

Comparatively little research has focused on transitions to agricultural-based lifestyles. Previous research revealed that some people engaged in early horticulture as part of this transition. Furthermore, worldwide environmental evidence indicates that a global drying event took place approximately several thousand years ago. How this event impacted development and processes of cultural adaptation are not yet well understood at local or regional scales. How did cultural groups make decisions about where to settle, when to move, how to procure important resources and interact with their neighbors, and how to react to changes in the local landscape? By examining multiple ecological zones, this project provides data to evaluate a wide range of hyper-local adaptations and the localized impacts of climate change. This research expands understandings of land use traditions and offers valuable insight into sustainable subsistence strategies in the midst of long-term environmental variability. The project trains undergraduate students in field methods, while local community members are involved in all stages of the research. Additionally, students and staff will develop a museum exhibit and cultural heritage center, and complementary K-12 curriculum is also being developed.Working with an interdisciplinary team of researchers the project investigates how hunter-gatherers adapted to unique micro-environments, including freshwater and brackish lagoons, swamp forest, pine/oak savanna, and tropical broadleaf forests, and how, if at all, these adaptations were impacted by the global drying. Current research indicates that the period was characterized by small, relatively mobile hunter-gatherer groups dwelling within a range of microenvironments and employing a variety of subsistence and mobility strategies (including incipient agriculture). This project teases apart the multifaceted question of which subsistence and mobility/settlement strategies were most successful in the range of microenvironments located around the study area, and which zones would have been most conducive to early agricultural experimentation. This study combines geospatial analyses, paleo-ecological studies, surveys and test excavations, materials analyses, and radiometric dating. The resulting interdisciplinary dataset allows the researchers to investigate the coupled interactions between human-natural systems at the local-to-regional scale and will provide a model by which further studies can be carried out to enhance broader understandings.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.