Infrastructure and Subsistence Strategies in the Context of Long Term Land Use

这个项目调查了在土地利用急剧变化、人类迁徙和经济转变的时期，被称为“沙漠风筝”的古代动物狩猎陷阱的社会和经济作用。这些结构位于极度干旱的玄武岩沙漠中，在该地区的史前晚期，这些结构是作为有蹄类动物的大规模杀戮陷阱而建造的。每条链包括数十到数百个单独的陷阱，跨越数十公里，由复杂的墙网连接起来，形成一个巨大的系统。这代表了古代对劳动力的基础设施投资，重要的社会组织，以及在边缘环境中产生生存剩余的能力。在此背景下，这项关于沙漠风筝的新研究主要关注沙漠基础设施的经济和大规模猎物操纵策略的社会组织，为边缘环境中的生存适应提供新的见解。这项研究的结果有可能改变史前人类对干旱环境的反应和适应的认识。该研究考察了史前时期人类土地利用的一个关键和研究不足的时期，以记录被忽视的重大人为景观改变的实例，并评估对气候和环境的潜在长期影响。为了解决这些问题，研究人员整合了遥感数据，包括历史卫星和航空图像、现代高分辨率卫星图像和低海拔无人机摄影的3D数据，用于景观尺度制图和古代特征分析。这种遥感数据源的组合为当前不断变化的景观条件提供了时间深度，为地形重建提供了3D数据，并在大的调查区域内提供了广泛的覆盖范围。对风筝和相关结构的密集挖掘补充了遥感分析，而对动物遗骸和文物的分析提供了一幅清晰的画面，说明大规模杀伤陷阱是如何被用作一种关键的生存技术，反映了广泛的区域合作。通过揭示对定居和土地利用模式、放牧与狩猎策略、建筑传统以及与不同地区的交流的细微见解，这项研究开始展示人们在经过充分研究的农业区之外建立的网络。这些新的战略、土地利用模式和定居点强调了一个重要的新的社会网络，这个网络到目前为止一直是不可见的，它将有助于在更大的干旱环境地区进行比较分析。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。

This project investigates the social and economic role of ancient animal hunting traps known as "desert kites" during a time of dramatic changing land use, human migrations, and shifting economies. Located in a hyper-arid, basaltic desert, these structures were built as mass-kill traps for ungulates in the later prehistory of the region. Each chain includes dozens to hundreds of individual traps, spanning tens of kilometers, linked by intricate wall networks that functioned to create one enormous system. These represent a remarkable ancient infrastructural investment in labor, significant social organization, and the ability to generate subsistence surpluses in a marginal environment. This new study of desert kites, in context, focuses on the economy of this desert infrastructure and the social organization of large-scale prey-manipulation strategies, to offer new insight into subsistence adaptations in marginal environments. The results from this research have the potential to transform knowledge of human responses and adaptations to arid environments in prehistory. The research examines human land-use in a critical and understudied period of prehistory in order to document overlooked instances of significant anthropogenic landscape transformation and assesses the potential long-term impact on climate and environment. To address these issues, the investigators integrate remote sensing data, including historic satellite and aerial imagery, modern high resolution satellite imagery, and 3D data from low-elevation drone photography for landscape-scale mapping and analysis of ancient features. This combination of remote sensing data sources provides time depth for changing landscape conditions in the present, 3D data for topographic reconstructions, and broad-scale coverage across a large survey area. The remote sensing analysis is complemented by intensive excavations of kites and associated structures while the analysis of animal remains and artifacts provide a clear picture of how massive-kill traps were used as a crucial subsistence technology that reflects broad regional cooperation. By revealing nuanced insights into settlement and land use patterns, herding versus hunting strategies, building traditions, and exchange with different regions, this research begins to demonstrate the network people established beyond well-studied agriculture zones. These new strategies, land use patterns and settlements underscore a vital new social network that has been invisible up until now and will facilitate comparative analyses across the larger arid environmental regions.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.