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- Creators: Arizona State University
- Creators: Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979-
Description
This research addresses human adaptive decisions made at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition - the transition from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the climate regime in which humankind now lives - in the Mediterranean region of southeast Spain. Although on a geological time scale the Pleistocene-Holocene transition is the latest in a series of widespread environmental transformations due to glacial-interglacial cycles, it is the only one for which we have a record of the response by modern humans. Mediterranean Spain lay outside the refugium areas of late Pleistocene Europe, in which advancing ice sheets limited the land available for subsistence and caused relative demographic packing of hunter-gatherers. Therefore, the archaeological records of Mediterranean Spain contain more generally applicable states of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, making it a natural laboratory for research on human adaptation to an environmental transformation. Foragers in Mediterranean Spain appear to have primarily adapted to macroclimatic change by extending their social networks to access new subsistence resources and by changing the mix of traditional relationships. Comparing faunal records from two cave sites near the Mediterranean coast with Geographic Information System (GIS) reconstructions of the coastal littoral plain from the LGM to the Holocene indicates the loss of the large ungulate species (mainly Bos primigenius and Equus) at one site coincided with the associated littoral disappearing due to sea level rise in the late Upper Paleolithic. Farther north, where portions of the associated littoral remained due to a larger initial mass and a more favorable topography, the species represented in the faunal record were constant through time. Social boundary defense definitions of territory require arranging social relationships in order to access even this lightly populated new hunting area on the interior plain. That the values of the least-cost-paths fit the parameters of two models equating varying degrees of social alliance with direct travel distances also helps support the hypothesis that foragers in Mediterranean Spain adapted to the consequences of macroclimatic change by extending their social networks to gain access to new subsistence resources Keeping these relationships stable and reliable was a mitigating factor in the mobility patterns of foragers during this period from direct travel to more distant down-the-line exchange. Information about changing conditions and new circumstances flowed along these same networks of social relationships. The consequences of climate-induced environmental changes are already a concern in the world, and human decisions in regard to future conditions are built upon past precedents. As the response to environmental risk centers on increasing the resilience of vulnerable smallholders, archaeology has an opportunity to apply its long-term perspective in the search for answers
ContributorsSchmich, Steven A (Author) / Clark, Geoffrey A. (Thesis advisor) / Barton, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Bearat, Hamdallah (Committee member) / Jochim, Michael A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
My dissertation contributes to a body of knowledge useful for understanding the evolution of subsistence economies based on agriculture from those based on hunting and gathering, as well as the development of formal rules and norms of territorial ownership in hunter-gatherer societies. My research specifically combines simple formal and conceptual models with the empirical analysis of large ethnographic and environmental data sets to study feedback processes in coupled forager-resource systems. I use the formal and conceptual models of forager-resource systems as tools that aid in the development of two alternative arguments that may explain the adoption of food production and formal territorial ownership among hunter-gatherers. I call these arguments the Uncertainty Reduction Hypothesis and the Social Opportunity Hypothesis. Based on the logic of these arguments, I develop expectations for patterns of food production and formal territorial ownership documented in the ethnographic record of hunter-gatherer societies and evaluate these expectations with large ethnographic and environmental data sets. My analysis suggests that the Uncertainty Reduction Hypothesis is more consistent with the data than the Social Opportunity Hypothesis. Overall, my approach combines the intellectual frameworks of evolutionary ecology and resilience thinking. The result is a theory of subsistence change that integrates elements of three classic models of economic development with deep intellectual roots in human ecology: The Malthusian, Boserupian and Weberian models. A final take home message of my study is that evolutionary ecology and resilience thinking are complementary frameworks for archaeologists who study the transition from hunting and gathering to farming.
ContributorsFreeman, Jacob (Author) / Anderies, John M (Thesis advisor) / Nelson, Margaret C. (Thesis advisor) / Barton, C Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The manner in which land and water are used and managed is a major influencing factor of global environmental change. Globally, modifications to the landscape have drastically transformed social and ecological communities. Land and water management practices also influences people's vulnerability to hazards. Other interrelated factors are compounding problems of environmental change as a result of land and water use changes. Such factors include climate change, sea level rise, the frequency and severity of hurricanes, and increased populations in coastal regions. The implication of global climate change for small islands and small island communities is especially troublesome. Socially, small islands have a limited resource base, deal with varying degrees of insularity, generally have little political power, and have limited economic opportunities. The physical attributes of small islands also increase their vulnerability to global climate change, including limited land area, limited fresh water supplies, and greater distances to resources. The focus of this research project is to document place-specific - and in this case island-specific - human-environmental interactions from a political ecology perspective as a means to address local concerns and possible consequences of global environmental change. The place in which these interactions are examined is the barrier island and village of Ocracoke, North Carolina. I focus on the specific historical-geography of land and water management on Ocracoke as a means to examine relationships between local human-environmental interactions and environmental change.
ContributorsPompeii, Brian J (Author) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Boone, Christopher (Committee member) / Lukinbeal, Christopher (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Sustainability requires developing the capacity to manage difficult tradeoffs to advance human livelihoods now and in the future. Decision-makers are recognizing the ecosystem services approach as a useful framework for evaluating tradeoffs associated with environmental change to advance decision-making towards holistic solutions. In this dissertation I conduct an ecosystem services assessment on the Yongding River Ecological Corridor in Beijing, China. I developed a `10-step approach' to evaluate multiple ecosystem services for public policy. I use the 10-step approach to evaluate five ecosystem services for management from the Yongding Corridor. The Beijing government created lakes and wetlands for five services (human benefits): (1) water storage (groundwater recharge), (2) local climate regulation (cooling), (3) water purification (water quality), (4) dust control (air quality), and (5) landscape aesthetics (leisure, recreation, and economic development).
The Yongding Corridor is meeting the final ecosystem service levels for landscape aesthetics, but the new ecosystems are falling short on meeting final ecosystem service levels for water storage, local climate regulation, water purification, and dust control. I used biophysical models (process-based and empirically-based), field data (biophysical and visitor surveys), and government datasets to create ecological production functions (i.e., regression models). I used the ecological production functions to evaluate how marginal changes in the ecosystems could impact final ecosystem service outcomes. I evaluate potential tradeoffs considering stakeholder needs to recommend synergistic actions for addressing priorities while reducing service shortfalls.
The Yongding Corridor is meeting the final ecosystem service levels for landscape aesthetics, but the new ecosystems are falling short on meeting final ecosystem service levels for water storage, local climate regulation, water purification, and dust control. I used biophysical models (process-based and empirically-based), field data (biophysical and visitor surveys), and government datasets to create ecological production functions (i.e., regression models). I used the ecological production functions to evaluate how marginal changes in the ecosystems could impact final ecosystem service outcomes. I evaluate potential tradeoffs considering stakeholder needs to recommend synergistic actions for addressing priorities while reducing service shortfalls.
ContributorsWong, Christina P (Author) / Kinzig, Ann P (Thesis advisor) / Lee, Kai N. (Committee member) / Muneepeerakul, Rachata (Committee member) / Ouyang, Zhiyun (Committee member) / Vivoni, Enrique (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This dissertation research describes the hunting behavior of early modern humans through the analysis of vertebrate faunal remains from Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco. Contrebandiers Cave is located in the town of Témara and is roughly 250 meters from the current shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean. The cave was excavated in the 1950s and 1970s by l’Abbé Roche, and again starting in 2007 by Dibble and El Hajraoui with total station plotting of finds. Contrebandiers Cave contains Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits dated to Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 5e, 5d and 5c, ~120,000 to ~96,000 years ago. The Later Stone Age (LSA) deposits are dated to MIS 2, ~20,000 years ago. The entirety of the ~12,000 vertebrate faunal remains from Dibble and El Hajraoui’s excavation were analyzed for taxonomic and taphonomic identification.
A total of 67 vertebrate taxa were identified and include ungulates, carnivores, lagomorphs, birds, tortoises, snakes and fish. The faunal remains from Contrebandiers Cave preserve surface modification that indicates both humans and carnivores acted as agents of prey accumulation. Skeletal element representation and surface modification of ungulate remains suggest that humans had primary access to small, medium and large-bodied prey. In the MSA levels, carnivore skeletal remains preserve surface modification that is interpreted as being indicative of behavior associated with skinning for fur removal.
The vertebrate faunal remains from MIS 5e and 5d indicate that humans were hunting grazers and mixed feeders from open habitats and suids from mixed habitats. The faunal remains from MIS 5c indicate that humans focused less on suids and more on mixed feeders from open habitats. The vertebrate faunal remains from MIS 2 reveal humans hunting grazers from dry, open habitats. This research provides a description of human hunting behavior in North Africa, and contributes to our understanding of early modern human behavior prior to dispersal out of Africa.
A total of 67 vertebrate taxa were identified and include ungulates, carnivores, lagomorphs, birds, tortoises, snakes and fish. The faunal remains from Contrebandiers Cave preserve surface modification that indicates both humans and carnivores acted as agents of prey accumulation. Skeletal element representation and surface modification of ungulate remains suggest that humans had primary access to small, medium and large-bodied prey. In the MSA levels, carnivore skeletal remains preserve surface modification that is interpreted as being indicative of behavior associated with skinning for fur removal.
The vertebrate faunal remains from MIS 5e and 5d indicate that humans were hunting grazers and mixed feeders from open habitats and suids from mixed habitats. The faunal remains from MIS 5c indicate that humans focused less on suids and more on mixed feeders from open habitats. The vertebrate faunal remains from MIS 2 reveal humans hunting grazers from dry, open habitats. This research provides a description of human hunting behavior in North Africa, and contributes to our understanding of early modern human behavior prior to dispersal out of Africa.
ContributorsHallett, Emily Yuko (Author) / Marean, Curtis W (Thesis advisor) / Reed, Kaye E (Committee member) / Dibble, Harold L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Since the late 1990s thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hundreds of miles of fencing, and additional immigration checkpoints have been added to the Mexico-U.S. border region. This unprecedented increase in boundary enforcement has strained existing relationships and created new separations between people and places in the borderlands. Southwestern Arizona has been impacted in especially dramatic ways, as the “hardening” of the international boundary has transformed conservation and indigenous spaces into theaters of drug interdiction and immigration control. This dissertation explores this transformation in southwestern Arizona, a region that was known by Spanish Colonial administrators as the Papaguería. With the community of Ajo at the center of the narrative, this dissertation explores the ways that industry and conservation have long shaped the social relations and the landscape of the region. The destruction of old borders, the creation of new borders, and the redefinition of space has been an ongoing process that continues to define some groups of people as insiders and other groups as outsiders. In the current era of border security echoes from earlier colonial encounters reverberate into the present, shaping landscapes and the lives of local residents in the contemporary Papaguería in significant ways.
ContributorsWarren, Scott (Author) / Arreola, Daniel D (Thesis advisor) / Klett, Mark (Committee member) / Hirt, Paul (Committee member) / McHugh, Kevin E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This study explores how early modern humans used stone tool technology to adapt to changing climates and coastlines in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. The MSA is associated with the earliest fossil evidence for modern humans and complex cultural behaviors during a time period of dramatic climate change. Human culture allows for the creation, use, and transmission of technological knowledge that can evolve with changing environmental conditions. Understanding the interactions between technology and the environment is essential to illuminating the role of culture during the origin of our species. This study is focused on understanding ancient tool use from the study of lithic edge damage patterns at archaeological assemblages in southern Africa by using image-based quantitative methods for analyzing stone tools. An extensive experimental program using replicated stone tools provides the comparative linkages between the archaeological artifacts and the tasks for which they were used. MSA foragers structured their tool use and discard behaviors on the landscape in several ways – by using and discarding hunting tools more frequently in the field rather than in caves/rockshelters, but similarly in coastal and interior contexts. This study provides evidence that during a significant microlithic technological shift seen in southern Africa at ~75,000 years ago, new technologies were developed alongside rather than replacing existing technologies. These results are compared with aspects of the European archaeological record at this time to identify features of early human technological behavior that may be unique to the evolutionary history of our species.
ContributorsSchoville, Benjamin J (Author) / Marean, Curtis W (Thesis advisor) / Barton, Michael (Committee member) / Hill, Kim (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The Middle Stone Age archaeological record from the south coast of South Africa contains significant evidence for early modern human behavior. The south coast is within the modern Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR), which in the present-day encompasses the entirety of South Africa’s Winter Rainfall Zone (WRZ) and contains unique vegetation elements that have been hypothesized to be of high utility to hunter-gatherer populations. Extant paleoenvironmental proxy records for the Pleistocene in the region often indicate evidence for more open environments during the past than occur in the area in the present-day, while climate models suggest glacial presence of the WRZ that would support maintenance of C3-predominant GCFR vegetation.
These paleoenvironmental proxies sample past environments at geographic scales that are often regional. The GCFR flora is hyper-diverse, and glacial climate change-driven impacts on local vegetation could have been highly variable over relatively small geographic scales. Proxy records that are circumscribed in their geographic scale are thus key to our understanding of ancient environments at particular MSA archaeological localities.
Micromammal fossil teeth are now recognized as an abundant potential reservoir of paleoenvironmental proxy data at an extremely local scale. This study analyzed modern micromammal teeth obtained from raptor pellets at three locations on the south coast. Stable carbon isotope analysis indicates that the modern micromammals from the taxa sampled consume a wide range of δ13Cplant on the landscape when it is available, and thus stable carbon isotope analysis of micromammal teeth should act as a proxy for the range of available δ13Cdiet in a circumscribed area of vegetation.
Micromammal stable carbon isotope data obtained from specimens from one of the few well-dated MIS6-MIS5 sequences in the region (Pinnacle Point sites 13B, 30, and 9C). δ13Cenamel values for the taxa sampled indicate diets that are primarily C3, and there is almost no evidence for a dietary C4 grass component in any of the sampled specimens. This indicates that, at a minimum, pockets of C3 vegetation associated with the GCFR were likely available to hunter-gatherers at Pinnacle Point throughout the Middle and Late Pleistocene.
These paleoenvironmental proxies sample past environments at geographic scales that are often regional. The GCFR flora is hyper-diverse, and glacial climate change-driven impacts on local vegetation could have been highly variable over relatively small geographic scales. Proxy records that are circumscribed in their geographic scale are thus key to our understanding of ancient environments at particular MSA archaeological localities.
Micromammal fossil teeth are now recognized as an abundant potential reservoir of paleoenvironmental proxy data at an extremely local scale. This study analyzed modern micromammal teeth obtained from raptor pellets at three locations on the south coast. Stable carbon isotope analysis indicates that the modern micromammals from the taxa sampled consume a wide range of δ13Cplant on the landscape when it is available, and thus stable carbon isotope analysis of micromammal teeth should act as a proxy for the range of available δ13Cdiet in a circumscribed area of vegetation.
Micromammal stable carbon isotope data obtained from specimens from one of the few well-dated MIS6-MIS5 sequences in the region (Pinnacle Point sites 13B, 30, and 9C). δ13Cenamel values for the taxa sampled indicate diets that are primarily C3, and there is almost no evidence for a dietary C4 grass component in any of the sampled specimens. This indicates that, at a minimum, pockets of C3 vegetation associated with the GCFR were likely available to hunter-gatherers at Pinnacle Point throughout the Middle and Late Pleistocene.
ContributorsWilliams, Hope Marie (Author) / Marean, Curtis W (Thesis advisor) / Knudson, Kelly J. (Thesis advisor) / Reed, Kaye (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This study investigates the vulnerability of subsistence agriculturalists to food shortfalls associated with dry periods. I approach this effort by evaluating prominent and often implicit conceptual models of vulnerability to dry periods used by archaeologists and other scholars investigating past human adaptations in dry climates. The conceptual models I evaluate rely on an assumption of regional-scale resource marginality and emphasize the contribution of demographic conditions (settlement population levels and watershed population density) and environmental conditions (settlement proximity to perennial rivers and annual precipitation levels) to vulnerability to dry periods. I evaluate the models and the spatial scales they might apply by identifying the extent to which these conditions influenced the relationship between dry-period severity and residential abandonment in central Arizona from A.D. 1200 to 1450. I use this long-term relationship as an indicator of potential vulnerability to dry periods. I use tree-ring precipitation and streamflow reconstructions to identify dry periods. Critically examining the relationship between precipitation conditions and residential abandonment potentially sparked by the risk of food shortfalls due to demographic and environmental conditions is a necessary step toward advancing understanding of the influences of changing climate conditions on human behavior. Results of this study support conceptual models that emphasize the contribution of high watershed population density and watershed-scale population-resource imbalances to relatively high vulnerability to dry periods. Models that emphasize the contribution of: (1) settlement population levels, (2) settlement locations distant from perennial rivers, (3) settlement locations in areas of low average annual precipitation; and (4) settlement-scale population-resource imbalances to relatively high vulnerability to dry periods are, however, not supported. Results also suggest that people living in watersheds with the greatest access to and availability of water were the most vulnerable to dry periods, or at least most likely to move when confronted with dry conditions. Thus, commonly held assumptions of differences in vulnerability due to settlement population levels and inherently water poor conditions are not supported. The assumption of regional-scale resource marginality and widespread vulnerability to dry periods in this region of the U.S. Southwest is also not consistently supported throughout the study area.
ContributorsIngram, Scott Eric (Author) / Nelson, Margaret C. (Thesis advisor) / Abbott, David R. (Committee member) / Kintigh, Keith W. (Committee member) / Kinzig, Ann P. (Committee member) / Redman, Charles L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
Despite nearly five decades of archaeological research in the Romanian Carpathian basin and adjacent areas, how human foragers organized their stone artifact technologies under varying environmental conditions remains poorly understood.
Some broad generalizations have been made; most work in the region is concerned primarily with descriptive and definitional issues rather than efforts to explain past human behavior or human-environmental interactions. Modern research directed towards understanding human adaptation to different environments remains in its infancy. Grounded in the powerful conceptual framework of evolutionary ecology and utilizing recent methodological advances, this work has shown that shifts in land-use strategies changes the opportunities for social and biological interaction among Late Pleistocene hominins in western Eurasia, bringing with it a plethora of important consequences for cultural and biological evolution.
I employ, in my Dissertation, theoretical and methodological advances derived from human behavioral ecology (HBE) and lithic technology organization to show how variability in lithic technology can explain differences in technoeconomic choices and land-use strategies of Late Pleistocene foragers in Romanian Carpathians Basin and adjacent areas. Set against the backdrop of paleoenvironmental change, the principal questions I addressed are whether or not technological variation at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic can account for fundamental changes at its end.
The analysis of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic strata, from six archaeological sites, shows that the lithic industries were different not because of biocultural differences in technological organization, landuse strategies, and organizational flexibility. Instead the evidence suggests that technoeconomic strategies, the intensity of artifact curation and how foragers used the land appear to have been more closely related to changing environmental conditions, task-specific activities, and duration of occupation. This agrees well with the results of studies conducted in other areas and with those predicted from theoretically-derived models based on evolutionary ecology. My results lead to the conclusion that human landuse effectively changes the environment of selection for hominins and their lithic technologies, an important component of the interface between humans and the natural world. Foragers move across the landscape in comparable ways in very different ecological settings, cross-cutting both biological morphotypes and prehistorian-defined analytical units.
Some broad generalizations have been made; most work in the region is concerned primarily with descriptive and definitional issues rather than efforts to explain past human behavior or human-environmental interactions. Modern research directed towards understanding human adaptation to different environments remains in its infancy. Grounded in the powerful conceptual framework of evolutionary ecology and utilizing recent methodological advances, this work has shown that shifts in land-use strategies changes the opportunities for social and biological interaction among Late Pleistocene hominins in western Eurasia, bringing with it a plethora of important consequences for cultural and biological evolution.
I employ, in my Dissertation, theoretical and methodological advances derived from human behavioral ecology (HBE) and lithic technology organization to show how variability in lithic technology can explain differences in technoeconomic choices and land-use strategies of Late Pleistocene foragers in Romanian Carpathians Basin and adjacent areas. Set against the backdrop of paleoenvironmental change, the principal questions I addressed are whether or not technological variation at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic can account for fundamental changes at its end.
The analysis of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic strata, from six archaeological sites, shows that the lithic industries were different not because of biocultural differences in technological organization, landuse strategies, and organizational flexibility. Instead the evidence suggests that technoeconomic strategies, the intensity of artifact curation and how foragers used the land appear to have been more closely related to changing environmental conditions, task-specific activities, and duration of occupation. This agrees well with the results of studies conducted in other areas and with those predicted from theoretically-derived models based on evolutionary ecology. My results lead to the conclusion that human landuse effectively changes the environment of selection for hominins and their lithic technologies, an important component of the interface between humans and the natural world. Foragers move across the landscape in comparable ways in very different ecological settings, cross-cutting both biological morphotypes and prehistorian-defined analytical units.
ContributorsPopescu, Gabriel Marius (Author) / Barton, Charles Michael (Thesis advisor) / Clark, Geoffrey A. (Thesis advisor) / Marean, Curtis W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015