Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Human Foodways in the Context of Environmental Change

This doctoral dissertation project uses integrated archaeological and palaeoecological approaches to examine past relationships between culture and the environment. Despite significant advances in understanding Paleoindian lifeways, the relationship between human populations and plant communities remains unclear. How severely did changing environmental conditions affect available resources and how did humans respond?

Answering these questions is critical to discerning how the Americas were populated and how humans adapt to arid environments more broadly. Research to answer these questions has been challenged by a lack of well-preserved botanical remains from archaeological sites and a rarity of refined paleoenvironmental records. This project will produce high-resolution dietary and vegetation data needed to address these longstanding questions.

In addition to testing theoretical models of people-plant dynamics in the past, this work will also inform current issues such as the impact of warming conditions on human populations and vegetation communities. The investigators will contribute to public education through coordinated events, a traveling exhibit, and informational pamphlets that engage local communities and Indigenous groups.

By highlighting the long-term relationship between humans and plants, this outreach will encourage appreciation and stewardship of regional natural and culture resources.

Current knowledge of Paleoindian diets is heavily skewed toward the preferential preservation of faunal remains relative to plants in the archaeological record. This biases perspectives and limits the ability to fully test theoretical models. Connley Caves in central Oregon provides a unique opportunity to conduct a two-pronged study that examines dietary plant data within the context of a high-resolution local vegetation history.

The doctoral student will analyze the archaeobotanical remains (e.g., seeds, fruits, roots) from five hearths preserved at the site to examine trends in diet breadth, foraging zones, seasonality, and site activities. She will also analyze pollen in sediment cores from a nearby marsh to reconstruct the environment in which people were foraging. When integrated, data from the caves and marsh will provide the framework needed to test long-held settlement-subsistence models that predict where people foraged, what resources they exploited, and how they divided their labor.

Beyond the immediate questions of this project, the robust archaeobotanical assemblage and powerful environmental proxy data produced by the research will have broader applications for anthropological, palaeoecological, and geologic studies throughout the region.

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.