Research in Undergraduate Institutions: Relationship between Area Size and Population History

在这个本科院校研究奖中，首席研究员将与同事们一起进行考古实地调查和基于激光雷达的遥感研究，以了解一些目前无人居住的小岛屿的占领和使用历史。考古学在研究这些边缘环境的历史上具有独特的地位，这些边缘环境在最近的过去被认为不适合人类居住。先前的研究已经揭示了许多这样的岛屿上丰富的（如果不是连续的）使用历史。目前的项目将对小岛屿环境进行扩大和全面的研究，以便根据岛屿的大小、环境多样性以及边缘性和连通性的位置负担，调查岛屿大小与定居和开发风险之间的关系。调查考古学传统上关注的是连续景观上的定居历史。该项目还提供了一个非定居的历史，偶然使用，跨越特定类型的海上环境。这项研究将产生一系列个案研究和在研究不足的一类岛屿环境中对使用和废弃周期进行大规模的比较框架分析。两个季节的实地考察将对30个无人居住的岛屿进行系统的考古调查。在进行考古调查的同时，还将进行地貌学研究，以便对个别岛屿的景观进行全面的跨学科分析，并对动态的人类和自然历史进行新的研究。本项目为考古专业（及相关领域）的本科生提供了独特的研究机会。此外，它还提供包括国际研究生在内的多层次指导和培训。除了目前的研究，激光雷达数据将提供给其他考古学家和环境科学团队。这将对评估和监测特别容易遭受抢劫和景观退化的地区的能力产生影响。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。

In this Research in Undergraduate Institutions award the principal investigator, along with colleagues will carry out archaeological fieldwork and lidar-based remote sensing research in order to understand the history of occupation and use across a number of small, currently uninhabited islands. Archaeology is uniquely positioned to investigate the history of such marginal environments, which have been largely dismissed in the recent past as unsuitable for human habitation. Previous research has already revealed a rich (if non-continuous) history of use on many such islands. The current project will provide an expanded and comprehensive study of small-island environments in order to investigate the correlation between island size and risk of settlement and exploitation, based on size, environmental diversity, and locational affordances of marginality and connectivity. Survey archaeology has traditionally focused on the history of settlement across a continuous landscape. This project provides also a history of non-settlement, of incidental use, across a particular type of maritime setting. The research will produce a series of individual cases studies and a large-scale, comparative framework analysis of cycles of use and abandonment in an under-researched type of island environment.Two seasons of fieldwork will provide systematic archaeological surveys of 30 uninhabited islands. A geomorphological study will be conducted alongside the archaeological survey, in order to provide a fully interdisciplinary analysis of individual island landscapes, as well as a new study of the dynamic human and natural history. As an RUI proposal, this project provides unique research opportunities to undergraduate students in the archaeology program (and related fields). Moreover, it provides multi-level mentoring and training that also involves international graduate students. In addition to the present research, the lidar data will be made available to other archaeologists and environmental science teams.. This will have a impact on the ability to assess and monitor areas that are uniquely vulnerable to looting and landscape degradation.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.