Technology, Paleoenvironment and Exchange

这个项目探索了早期狩猎和采集社会中陶器技术出现的环境和行为背景。在“新石器时代革命”期间发展起来的早期考古学理论假定，对驯化植物的日益依赖、久居的乡村生活和用于食物储存和烹饪的陶器的生产之间存在因果关系。然而，考古和民族志研究发现，人们不必依赖驯化的植物来制作陶器，实际上，具有不同流动性的猎人和采集者制作和使用陶瓷器皿。最近的研究表明，世界上已知的一些最早的陶器是由狩猎采集者采用的。尽管有这些令人兴奋的发现，但人们对这些发现的年代以及它们出现的社会和生态背景知之甚少。这个项目考察了陶器被采用的确切时间，环境变化的影响，以及相关的技术和行为。研究小组计划在一个这样的早期遗址研究聚落模式、流动性和相关文物组合的变化。不同的古环境变化的对比表明，海平面上升与陶器出现的开始有最显著的对应关系。然而，需要高分辨率的地质年代学来充分评估和理解所发生的变化。这项研究将确定陶器的出现是否与海平面上升、决定变得更久坐、过渡到富含植物食物的饮食以及为缓冲与海平面上升和气候变化相关的新出现的风险而进行的长途交流相对应。为了实现这一目标，项目负责人组建了一个跨学科的团队，由地质年代学家和古海洋学家组成，他们将创建海平面模型，陶瓷分析专家将使用薄片方法、化学来源、微探针分析和其他技术来确定陶器的可能来源，石器专家将研究石器技术和用途的变化，以及环境DNA和从挖掘中发现的植物遗骸的分析专家，以确定这两个时期的生态和食物。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 explores the environmental and behavioral contexts of the appearance of pottery technologies in early hunting and gathering societies. Early archaeological theories developed during the “Neolithic Revolution” posited a causal relationship between increasing reliance on domesticated plants, sedentary village life, and the production of pottery vessels for food storage and cooking. However, archaeological and ethnographic research discovered that people did not have to be reliant on domesticated plants to create pottery and indeed, hunters and gatherers with varying degrees of mobility made and used ceramic vessels. Recent research indicates that some of the earliest known pottery in the world was adopted by hunter-gatherers. Despite these exciting discoveries, very little is well known of the dating of the finds and the social and ecological contexts of their appearance. This project examines the exact timing of the adoption of pottery, the impact of environmental change, and associated technology and behaviors. The research team plans to examine changes in settlement patterns, mobility, and associated assemblages of artifacts at one such early site. Comparisons of distinct paleoenvironmental changes suggests that sea level rise has the most significant correspondence to the onset of pottery appearance. Nonetheless, a high-resolution geochronology is required to adequately evaluate and understand changes that occurred. This study will determine if the emergence of pottery corresponds with sea level rise, and decisions to become more sedentary, a transition to a diet rich in plant food, and long-distance exchange to buffer newly emerging risks associated with sea level rise and climate change. To accomplish this, project leaders have assembled an interdisciplinary team of geochronologists and paleooceanographers who will create models of sea levels, specialists in ceramic analysis who, using thin section methods, chemical sourcing, microprobe analysis and other techniques, will define the likely sources of the pottery, experts of stone tools will study change in lithic technology and uses, and specialists in the analysis of environmental DNA and plant remains recovered from excavation to define the ecology of the region and foodways in the two periods.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.