Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Pastoral Adaptation in Environmental Context

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this project is to investigate the adaptive strategies of pastoralists in response to long-term drought and sociopolitical changes in the past. Ethnographic accounts of pastoralists highlight culturally specific traditional knowledge systems that incorporate animal diet and mobility and environmental factors to shape decision-making in herding practices and resource management strategies. Archaeological data, ethnographic literature, and biogeochemical analyses of animal remains can provide insights into mitigation strategies that have potential applications for informing the ecological knowledge of contemporary herders. This project employs archaeological remains to compare camelid dietary and mobility patterns across different ecological and altitudinal settings to explain how ecological and social conditions shape human-animal-environmental interactions. This project aims to provide opportunities to train undergraduate students in stable isotope analysis, a tool that has become a staple in archaeological research. To examine the nature and variability of camelid herding practices, this project assesses the temporal and spatial variability of herding strategies including pasturing, foddering, and mobility. It will examine inter- and intra-community variability in camelid herding strategies through stable isotope analysis of camelid remains from two pastoral settlements. The two study sites span a period characterized by changes in climate and environment, increasing conflict and political fragmentation. Carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope analyses of camelid remains from residential compounds at both sites will provide insights into the variability of herding practices at the local and regional scale. Using multi-isotopic analyses of camelid bone and teeth samples, will be used to answer the following directed questions involving diet and seasonal movement. Examining forms of camelid herding strategies and their variability presents insights into localized responses to changes in regional trade networks, migration, and conflict in the past. 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.