Early Agriculture and Landscape Domestication along the Middle Berbice River, Guyana

圭亚那伯比斯河中游沿线的早期农业和景观驯化

• 批准号: 1022537
• 负责人: Michael Heckenberger
• 金额: $ 10.83万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1022537&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Early; Agriculture; Landscape; Domestication; along

This project builds on preliminary research along the middle Berbice River, Guyana (NSF International Planning Grant, OISE #0923703), which revealed an extremely long sequence of settled agricultural occupations, spanning five millennia. The primary objective is to characterize initial settled agricultural occupations (ca. 5200-4700 year before present), which include one of the earliest ceramic industries in the Americas. These occupations provide the earliest examples of heavily modified 'black earth' or 'Amazonian dark earth'(ADE) soils from tropical forest regions of South America (Amazonia), typically associated semi-intensive land management. A further objective is to refine the regional chronology of agricultural occupations, including an early complex of agricultural mounds (ca. 2000-1500 BP) and large settlements reported in early historical documents (ca. 1540 and later). The project, designed as the initial phase of a multi-year, interdisciplinary study, involves archaeological survey and excavations at several occupation sites and associated agricultural earthworks within a 30 x 10 km study area, as well as related studies on paleoethnobotany, soils studies, biogeography, and ethnohistory within the study area. Archaeological perspectives on Amazonian tropical forests have changed dramatically in the past few years. Long portrayed as relatively pristine tropical forest, recent archaeology suggests novel pathways of early domestication, agriculture, and semi-intensive resource management, including large occupations sites, agricultural and village earthworks, and substantially human-modified soils (ADE). However, sites that pertain to the earliest agricultural populations, which regional specialists suggest may have appeared ca. 5,000 to 4,000 BP, are virtually unknown. This project provides an important case for the transition from incipient to more intensive agro-economies and land-use in Amazonia. It helps situate the region in broader archaeological discussions regarding the development of agriculture, settled community life, and landscape transformation in other parts of the world. The project will also refine the chronology of agricultural occupations in this little known portion of northern Amazonia, notably including periods of agricultural intensification associated with the construction of artificial farming mounds and the transitional period between late prehistoric and historic period occupations. The project contributes to broader discussions of long-term change in coupled natural-human systems in tropical forest regions, notably the effects of early agricultural populations on tropical ecology. Researchers from varied disciplines agree that planning, conservation, and local, regional, and global ecological modeling must account for the human dimensions of long term change. The findings of this study will therefore have critical implications for contemporary questions of conservation, sustainable development, biodiversity, and ecological integrity in the region. The project, which integrates archaeology, historical anthropology, and ecology, will strengthen international collaboration and provides diverse opportunities for local communities and Guyanese students, including collaboration with descendant Amerindian communities.

该项目以圭亚那伯比斯河中游沿线的初步研究为基础（NSF 国际规划拨款，OISE #0923703），该研究揭示了一个极其漫长的定居农业职业序列，跨越了五千年。 主要目标是描述最初定居的农业职业（距今约 5200-4700 年），其中包括美洲最早的陶瓷工业之一。 这些职业提供了来自南美洲（亚马逊）热带森林地区的“黑土”或“亚马逊暗土”（ADE）土壤经过大量改造的最早例子，通常与半集约化土地管理相关。进一步的目标是完善农业职业的区域年表，包括早期的农业土丘综合体（约距今 2000-1500 年）和早期历史文献中报道的大型定居点（约 1540 年及以后）。 该项目被设计为多年跨学科研究的初始阶段，涉及在 30 x 10 公里研究区域内的几个占领地点和相关农业土方工程进行考古调查和挖掘，以及古民族植物学、土壤研究、研究区域内的生物地理学和民族史。 在过去的几年里，考古学对亚马逊热带森林的看法发生了巨大的变化。长期以来，这里被描述为相对原始的热带森林，最近的考古学表明了早期驯化、农业和半集约化资源管理的新途径，包括大型占领区、农业和村庄土方工程以及实质上人类改良的土壤（ADE）。 然而，地区专家认为，与最早的农业人口有关的遗址可能出现在大约 10 年前。 5,000 到 4,000 BP，几乎是未知的。 该项目为亚马逊流域从初期农业经济和土地利用向更集约化的转变提供了重要案例。 它有助于将该地区置于更广泛的考古讨论中，这些讨论涉及世界其他地区的农业发展、定居社区生活和景观改造。该项目还将完善亚马逊流域北部这个鲜为人知的地区的农业职业年表，特别是包括与人工农田建设相关的农业集约化时期以及史前晚期和历史时期职业之间的过渡时期。 该项目有助于更广泛地讨论热带森林地区自然-人类耦合系统的长期变化，特别是早期农业人口对热带生态的影响。来自不同学科的研究人员一致认为，规划、保护以及地方、区域和全球生态模型必须考虑长期变化的人类因素。因此，这项研究的结果将对当代该地区的保护、可持续发展、生物多样性和生态完整性问题产生重要影响。该项目融合了考古学、历史人类学和生态学，将加强国际合作，并为当地社区和圭亚那学生提供多样化的机会，包括与美洲印第安人后裔社区的合作。