The Use Of "Ancient" DNA For Interpreting Predation And Mammalian Population Dynamics

University Of North Texas, Denton TX

Investigators

Abstract

Dr. Steve Wolverton, of the University of North Texas, along with colleagues in Biological Sciences and Geography, will undertake research to study the impact of long term hunting of large game in western Argentina. Previous scholarship on hunting of guanaco (a form of lama) indicates that hunter-gatherers were able to sustainably hunt the species for the last 4,000 years. This pattern is unique in that most archaeological studies of long term hunting of large wild game indicate that people overhunt prey populations, causing serious declines. What were the factors that enabled people to sustainably hunt large game in this aridland context over the long term? Analysis of ancient DNA (aDNA) from guanaco will enable archaeologists to learn about hunter-gatherer, large-game interactions in this context, which is relevant to hunting practices (contemporary and archaeological) in many other areas of the world. The guanaco and human populations in this region were migratory, taking advantage of the productive Andean river valleys during the summer; thus, an important aspect of this research is to determine if the geographic component of migration contributed to an ability to hunt sustainably. The research team will use new approaches in aDNA analysis, previously unexplored in archaeology. Thus, this research represents a substantial advancement through the use of new methods, which can be employed to study human hunting of large game in many areas of the world. The approaches refined in this study will be relevant to the study of aDNA from any species (including humans) in any part of the world when archaeologists are concerned with how populations grew or declined over time. . The result will be a comprehensive study of the impacts of long-term hunting in a sensitive aridland environment. This study is of particular interest because hunter-gatherers there seem to have figured out how to hunt sustainably. Understanding of this process has potential implications for managing migratory species today. Dr. Wolverton and his research team will examine the impacts of hunting on guanaco population genetics over time; in addition, whether or not guanaco populations remained geographically connected across the region during the last 4000 years will be studied through analysis of aDNA. The research will be conducted in the aDNA laboratory at the University of North Texas on samples from southern Mendoza Province, Argentina. Hunter-gatherers in the study region occupied the desert and steppe environments of the arid Andean escarpment, today occupied by migratory herders. The research, thus, links past hunter-gatherers to contemporary ranchers who use the same seasonal migratory patterns between the lowlands and Andean river valleys. The outcome will be an interdisciplinary dataset that can be combined with existing data on physical geography, stone tool resource use, stable-isotope analysis of animal bone, archaeobotanical analysis, and study of site locations over time The research will take place primarily at the University of North Texas, it represents substantial advancement in aDNA analysis in archaeology, and it will involve students in all phases of the project.