Collaborative Research: Origins of Food Production in the Northern Neotropical Lowlands

合作研究：北部新热带低地粮食生产的起源

• 批准号: 2211043
• 负责人: Douglas Kennett
• 金额: $ 14.76万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2211043&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Origins; Food; Production

The origin of food production was an important catalyst for the emergence of complex societies, institutional inequality, and social organization in the northern neotropics. Yet, to date, there is little understanding of when key crops (i.e., maize, manioc) were first consumed by humans, how intensively they were used through time, and how wild seed and root crops were integrated into a regional diet. Recent advances suggest that agriculture was well established by the middle Holocene in greater Amazonia, but we lack comparable data in the northern neotropics, even though we know there was significant migration and interaction between these regions. The project will document the processing and consumption of plant foods throughout the Holocene and produce new microbotanical libraries of modern plants from the region for comparative research. Many of the key crops studied are today globally important commodities and central features of diets across neotropical contexts making the study of their origins a matter of global importance. This project will carry out microbotanical analysis of starch grains and phytoliths obtained from grinding stones and dental calculus from archaeological contexts dating between 12,500 and 1,000 cal BP. To obtain these samples project members will conduct excavations at two remote rockshelter sites in a broadleaf neotropical forest where excellent preservation of organic materials has been previously demonstrated. Chronological control will be maintained with radiocarbon dates on charcoal and bone. Microbotanical data will be used to identify processing and consumption of domesticated and wild plant foods and to determine when specific cultigens such as maize and manioc were incorporated into the human diet. These data will also be used to study the changing importance of these domesticates relative to other wild taxa. Data will be shared with descendent communities though formal consultations and translations of published articles into local languages. This project will also promote the training of women and underrepresented students in the sciences.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.

粮食生产的起源是北部新热带地区复杂社会、制度不平等和社会组织出现的重要催化剂。 然而，迄今为止，人们对主要作物（即玉米、木薯）何时首次被人类食用、它们在一段时间内的使用强度以及野生种子和块根作物如何融入区域饮食中知之甚少。最近的进展表明，在全新世中期，大亚马逊流域的农业已经很完善，但我们缺乏北部新热带区的可比数据，尽管我们知道这些地区之间存在显着的迁移和相互作用。该项目将记录整个全新世植物性食品的加工和消费，并建立该地区现代植物的新微生物库，用于比较研究。所研究的许多关键作物如今已成为全球重要的商品，也是新热带地区饮食的核心特征，这使得对其起源的研究具有全球重要性。 该项目将对淀粉粒和植硅体进行微生物学分析，这些淀粉粒和植硅体是从距今 12,500 至 1,000 年考古环境中的磨石和牙结石中获得的。 为了获得这些样本，项目成员将在阔叶新热带森林中的两个偏远岩石庇护所地点进行挖掘，这些地点先前已证明有机材料得到了良好的保存。将通过木炭和骨头上的放射性碳测年来维持时间控制。微生物学数据将用于识别驯化和野生植物食品的加工和消费，并确定何时将玉米和木薯等特定栽培种纳入人类饮食中。这些数据还将用于研究这些驯化动物相对于其他野生类群的重要性的变化。 通过正式磋商并将已发表的文章翻译成当地语言，数据将与后代社区共享。该项目还将促进对女性和代表性不足的学生在科学领域的培训。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。