Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Capacity-building for Archaeobotanical Analysis

This award was provided as part of the NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF), Sociology, and Law and Science programs. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research.

NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields.

Under the sponsorship of Dr. Natalie Mueller at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist studying ancient plant use by hunter-gatherers.

Comparatively little research has been conducted on the role of hunting and gathering societies in novel forms of landscape management. Existing studies focus predominantly on lithic (stone tool) technologies and animal bones, which provide a partial view of past human behaviors. Studies of ancient plant use have been limited by a lack of 1) Scientists trained in the field and laboratory methods necessary to study ancient plant use; 2) Archaeological sites dating between 130,000 and 5,000-years ago at which plant remains have been recovered, and 3) An ethnobotanical and archaeobotanical comparative collection of plants linked to identified botanical voucher specimens.

The goal of this project is to develop a physical and digital ethnobotanical and archaeobotanical comparative collection of wild species, which will be fully integrated with the global herbarium system and available open access. This collection will be used to analyze plant remains from two previously excavated sites. This research will produce a foundational scientific resource and contribute to studies of broad scientific concern, such as deep histories of human-environment interactions.

This project will construct a comparative collection of wild plant species through ethnobotanical, archaeobotanical, and botanical research. An ethnobotanical database will be developed through a review of the existing regional literature. Ethnographic research near previously excavated sites will identify plants with known uses in the present.

Botanical voucher specimens, which focus on flowers and leaves, will be collected, as well as plant tissues most likely to preserve archaeologically, such as seeds and roots. These materials will be collected in multiples and stored at the collaborating institutions. High quality photographs of the plant tissues to assist with archaeobotanical analysis will also be made available online through Washington University.

This collection will then be used to identify plant remains. Radiocarbon dating of plant remains from each site will assist with dating the sites, constructing secure chronologies, and identifying disturbances that impact the interpretation of the results.

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.