Doctoral Dissertation Research Award: Recycling of Material Culture

人类对空间和物质文化的再利用在历史上是一种被广泛记录的行为，但研究人员才刚刚开始了解回收利用如何影响人类的行为进化。回收可以在个人的一生中发生，也可以在更长的时间尺度上发生。因此，考古学可以很好地研究回收的影响，因为物质文化记录是长期以来多种活动和职业的结果。研究表明，循环利用在历史上反复改写考古模式，但研究人员研究其对考古记录影响的模型有限。该项目将调查回收利用的早期例子，特别是石器。将开发以前未探索的影响考古沉积物回收频率的因素模型，使考古学家能够更好地了解为什么这种行为会在某些地方发生。这些将被用来评估时间和空间分布的职业暴露在开放的土地表面的文物存款。这些遗址是一个地区尚未开发的史前信息的主要来源，是人类活动和相互作用的纽带。该项目还将通过共享计算机代码和考古数据促进开放科学，以促进可复制性和可访问性。此外，该项目将促进国际合作，使考古学更容易获得，以便更好地融入人类历史的故事。 目前的论点是，石器工具的回收是因为原材料来源有限。然而，在当地有石材资源的地方，也有回收利用的人种学和考古学例子。这个项目测试了一个更新的回收模型，该模型由文物的暴露、选择行为和移动模式组成。研究人员创建了基于代理的计算机模拟，以确定由该模型产生的伪影分布。然后将这些模式与旧石器时代地表遗址的考古数据进行比较。将确定回收对象的浓度是否与模拟中的暴露、选择和移动性的代理重叠。开发的模型将帮助考古学家确定使景观中的回收或多或少可能的参数，从而更好地了解人类土地利用的历史。该项目代表了一个重要的一步，探索可能促进石器回收的条件范围，以充分了解这种行为在过去是如何运作的。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Human reuse of space and material culture is a widely documented behavior throughout history, but researchers are only beginning to understand how recycling influenced human behavioral evolution. Recycling can take place either within an individual lifetime or at much larger time scales. Archaeology is therefore well positioned to examine the effects of recycling because the material culture record results from multiple activities and occupations over extended periods of time. It has been shown that recycling repeatedly rewrites archaeological patterns through history, yet researchers have limited models for studying its effects on the archaeological record. This project will investigate early examples of recycling, specifically that of stone tools. Models of previously unexplored factors that impact the frequency of recycling in archaeological deposits, allowing archaeologists to better understand why this behavior happens in certain locations will be developed. These will be employed to evaluate the temporal and spatial distributions of occupations in artifact deposits exposed on open land surfaces. Such sites constitute a major untapped source of information about the prehistory in a region, which has been a nexus of human movement and interaction. This project will also promote open science through sharing of computer code and archaeological data to facilitate reproducibility and accessibility. Furthermore, this project will foster international collaboration to make the archaeology more accessible so it can be better incorporated into the story of human history. It is currently argued that stone tool recycling occurred because of limited access to raw material sources. However, there are ethnographic and archaeological examples of recycling occurring in places with locally available stone resources. This project tests an updated model of recycling that is patterned by exposure of artifacts, selection behaviors, and mobility patterns. The investigators create agent-based computer simulations to identify artifact distributions that result from this proposed model. These patterns will then be compared to archaeological data from a Paleolithic surface site complex. It will be determined if concentrations of recycled objects overlap with proxies for exposure, selection, and mobility as patterned in the simulation. The models developed will help archaeologists identify parameters that make recycling more or less likely within a landscape, allowing for better understanding the history of human land use. This project represents an important step to explore the range of conditions that may promote recycling of stone tools in order to fully understand how this behavior functioned in the past.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.