Doctoral Dissertation Research: Assessing Variability within Lithic Production Sequences

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。许多考古研究试图了解人类文化的起源和传播。在没有观察活的人口的情况下，考古学家在重建史前文化的进化史时，必须完全依靠史前民族创造的物品(即物质文化记录)。到目前为止，区分史前“相关”或“无关”的文化群体在很大程度上依赖于石器组合之间的相似性。但是，在一个单一的组合中，人们可以预期到多少变化仍然是未知的。只有在量化了单一职业内的预期变化量之后，才能开始区分哪些人群超出了共同文化群体的预期变化量。该项目帮助填补了这一空白，开发了一种新的石器技术分析方法，促进了石器分析领域的发展，并提高了研究人员提取史前人类行为实践的能力。一个关键组成部分是将独特的石器收藏数字化，这不仅将确保它们的寿命，而且将确保研究人员和公众能够接触到它们，而不会受到旅行和资金等典型限制。除了数字遗产保护的影响，这个项目还向公众提供了一个年轻的女学者在一个罕见的多个领域的交叉点工作的例子。制作的材料将被纳入到K-12教育模块中，以启发来自科学、进化论和考古学的一系列社会经济背景的学生。这个项目解决了石器生产在单个人群中和两个不同人群之间的不同程度。这个项目将专注于非常具体类型的石器文物，因为这些文物具有最大的存储潜力，从而在个人层面产生人类活动。这些物品在考古界被称为改装，这意味着史前人类在生产石器(即折断)过程中产生的所有材料都被保存在考古记录中，并最终拼凑起来。因此，这些“改装”显示了一个人在朝着一个目标努力时所采取的行动。正是这些改装中记录的行动顺序，加上已被证明是文化相关性的有意义的替代变量，进行了分析。由于数据的顺序性质，时间序列统计分析是与数学家同事合作进行的，以量化单个人口内和人口之间的变化量。由此，考古学家可以用来评估石器技术行为中的文化连续性与独立趋同的量化标准。这个项目的结果将有助于考古学领域，通过推进石器技术的分析技术，展示与数学家合作的效用，并提供一个量化标准，其他团队可以用来测试关于史前汇聚和文化连续性的假说。这个奖项反映了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。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Much of archaeological research seeks to understand the origins and diffusion of human culture. Without the option of observing living populations, archaeologists must rely solely on the objects produced by prehistoric peoples (i.e. the material culture record) when reconstructing the evolutionary history of prehistoric cultures. Distinguishing “related” or “unrelated” cultural groups in prehistory has to date relied largely on similarities among stone tool assemblages. But, how much variation one can expect within a single assemblage remains unknown. Only after quantifying the amount of variation one can expect within a single occupation can one begin to distinguish populations which fall outside of the expected amount for a shared cultural group. This project helps to fill this void by developing a new analytical approach to stone tool technology, advancing the field of stone tool analysis and researchers’ abilities to extract human behavioral practices in prehistory. A key component is the digitization of unique stone tool collections which will not only ensure their longevity but will ensure their accessibility to researchers and the public without typical constraints such as travel and finances. In addition to the digital heritage preservation impact, this project provides an example to the public of a young female scholar working at a rare intersection of multiple fields. Materials produced will be incorporated into K-12 education modules to inspire students from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in science, evolution, and archaeology.This project addresses the degree to which stone tool production varies within a single population and between two different populations. This project will focus on very specific types of stone tool artifacts because these have the greatest potential for storing and thus yielding human actions at the individual level. These objects are referred to as refits in the archaeological community, meaning all of the material which was produced during the production of stone tools (i.e. flintknapping) by a prehistoric person are preserved in the archaeological record and eventually pieced back together. These “refits” therefore display the actions taken by an individual while they were working towards a goal. It is the very sequence of actions recorded in these refits coupled with variables which have been demonstrated to be meaningful proxies for cultural relatedness which are analyzed. Because of the sequential nature of the data, time-series statistical analyses is performed in collaboration with mathematician colleagues to quantify the amount of variability present within a single population and among populations. From this, a quantitative standard by which archaeologists can evaluate cultural continuity versus independent convergence in stone tool technological behavior can be produced. The results from this project will contribute to the field of archaeology by advancing analytical techniques for stone tool technology, demonstrating the utility of collaborations with mathematicians, and providing a quantitative standard by which other teams may test hypotheses concerning convergence vs. cultural continuity in prehistory.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.