Migration and cultural change

Pacheco Fores, Sofia, Phoenix AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. James T. Watson at the University of Arizona, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist examining migration and cultural change. Archaeologists often cite migration as an explanatory factor for observed patterns of cultural change. However, relatively few studies scrutinize the purported relationship between changes in material culture and the biological reality of migration. This project will directly test hypothesized migrations, using a bioarchaeological approach to examine phenotypic variation in human skeletal remains to reconstruct patterns of biological relatedness and likely ancient migration patterns. Additionally, through targeted public outreach at museums and schools serving primarily Latinx communities, as well through collaborative workshops, the project will broaden participation of historically underrepresented groups within archaeology and the social sciences. This project will evaluate how and to what extent migration and cultural change were linked in the past. To test models of migration based on observed material changes in the archaeological record, the Fellow will collect dental and skeletal phenotypic data from approximately 2500 individuals curated in museums and repositories. Biodistance relationship (R) matrix and finite mixture analyses will allow the Fellow to identify past migrations at multiple scales, including large-scale population replacements, as well as small-scale individual migrants. Results will allow archaeologists and anthropologists working on similar topics to better evaluate how and to what extent migration and cultural change were linked in the past. Moreover, the time-depth provided by archaeological studies of migration provides scientists with a means of contextualizing and better understanding the long-term consequences of on-going migration processes today. 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.