The Impact of Environmental Change on Traditional Subsistence Strategies

The environmental can significantly impact human food practices, particularly in small-scale societies whose lifeways are closely linked to the animal and plant resources they depend on for survival. This project examines how people in small scale societies adapted their food practices to changes in the environment. Archaeological data can address this question because it provides information on past food practices, which can be integrated with palaeoclimatological records to assess the impact of environment changes on food practices over time.

In collaboration with local communities. researchers study a diverse range of dietary remains preserved at archaeological sites to provide a holistic perspective on human diets and document food practices at the individual level. The resulting data have value to communities working to mitigate the impact of environmental changes on culturally important traditional foods.

The community-based outcomes of this project provide opportunities for enhancing tribal engagement and scientific collaboration. This investigation develops new methods for identifying food practices in the past and contributes to the education and training of students in these methods as well as in community engagement.

This study produces a fine-grained record of hunter-gatherer dietary practices through analysis of plant and animal food remains in human feces preserved at archaeological sites. Dietary data is integrated with high-resolution palaeoclimatological data to evaluate the impact of environmental changes on hunter-gatherer subsistence. This study examines how environmental changes impacted (1) the availability of food resources, and (2) the decisions that hunter-gatherers made about which food resources to pursue.

Changes were variable across time and space and there are indications that the impact of oscillations on subsistence practices was variable at different sites. This project seeks a detailed analysis of this variability through a comprehensive study of human dietary choices integrated with high-resolution palaeoclimatological data. This study examines evidence that food practices at sites changed with environment fluctuations.

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.