Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Long Term Adaptation to Climate Change

该项目研究了北海峡群岛和邻近大陆海岸的楚马什社会气候退化、冲突和新出现的复杂性之间的关系。以前的研究已经发现，在中世纪气候异常(MCA)期间，劳动力大量重组，新技术的发展，以及楚马什社会内部致命冲突的间歇性增加，这是一个间歇性干旱和海面温度波动的时期。在与西班牙人接触之前，人们对丘玛什的社会组织和婚姻模式知之甚少，考古学非常适合重新获得这些知识。这项研究将通过对古代丘马什墓葬进行考古基因组(古代DNA)和考古计量学(锶、碳和氮同位素)分析的创新组合，确定MCA期间丘马什社会的亲属关系模式。在丘马什印第安人的巴尔巴诺乐队的监督下，从祖先的遗骸中提取了微创的小组织样本。由此产生的数据将与该区域的气候记录联系起来，并将加强我们对过去两千年来环境变化如何影响人类社会组织的理解。这项研究将在很大程度上帮助考古学家了解气候变化背景下社会变化的微妙方式。研究人员的土著丘马什遗产为这项研究提供了一个独特的机会，对美洲原住民和科学界都产生了积极的影响。拟议研究的目标包括在考古学中引入一系列不同的美洲原住民观点，并开发教学方法，以帮助将考古学研究作为一种历史知识形式纳入部落社区。将古代DNA和同位素方法结合到土著考古实践中，为土著和学术界之间的变革奠定了基础，同时激发了围绕北美土著遗骸最小破坏性分析的未来的重要讨论。该项目将评估和增加广泛关注人类如何应对短期和长期环境变化以及这些变化如何影响人类社会组织的模型。这项研究是在北部海峡群岛和邻近的圣巴巴拉海岸线上进行的，这些地区一直被楚马什人占领。楚马山社会的重大变化与一系列间歇性干旱同时发生，统称为中世纪气候异常。这项研究将把全基因组测序与丘马什墓葬的稳定同位素数据结合起来，并将这些数据与区域气候记录进行比较，以重建随着时间的推移不断变化的家庭关系和社会结构。这一奖项反映了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 project studies the relationship between climatic degradation, conflict, and emergent complexity in Chumash society on the Northern Channel Islands and adjacent mainland coast. Previous research has identified substantial reorganization of labor, development of new technologies, and punctuated increases in lethal conflict within Chumash society during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA), a period of episodic droughts and fluctuating sea-surface temperatures (SST). Very little is known about Chumash social organization and marital patterns prior to Spanish contact, and archaeology is well-suited to reclaiming this knowledge. This research will identify kinship patterns in Chumash society during the MCA by using an innovative combination of archaeogenomic (ancient DNA) and archaeometric (strontium, carbon, and nitrogen isotopes) analysis of ancient Chumash burials. Minimally invasive small tissue samples were taken from ancestral remains under the supervision of the Barbareño Band of Chumash Indians. Resulting data will be contextualized with climatic records for the region and will enhance our understanding of how environmental change affected human social organization over the past two thousand years. This research will substantially aide archaeologists in understanding nuanced ways in which society changes in the context of climate change. The researcher’s indigenous Chumash heritage provides a unique opportunity for this research to positively impact both the Native American and scientific communities. Goals of the proposed research include introducing a diverse array of Native American perspectives within archaeology and development of pedagogical methods to help integrate archaeological research within tribal communities as a form of historical knowledge. Integrating ancient DNA and isotopic method within indigenous archaeological practice serves as a foundation for transformational change between indigenous and academic communities while stimulating important discourse surrounding the future of minimally destructive analysis of indigenous remains in North America. The project will evaluate and add to models broadly focused on how humans respond to short and long-term environmental change and how these changes affect human social organization. This research takes place on the Northern Channel Islands and the adjacent Santa Barbara coastline, areas that have been continuously occupied by the Chumash people. Significant changes in Chumashan society co-occurred with a series of episodic droughts known collectively as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. This study will couple genome-wide sequencing with stable isotope data from Chumash burials and compare these data to regional climate records to reconstruct changing familial relationships and social structure through time.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.