Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding the Sustainable Drivers of Land Use

University Of Cincinnati Main Campus, Cincinnati OH

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding past civilizations, how they emerge, and how they eventually falter offers critical insights into long-term human behavior patterns, especially regarding land use practices and environmental interactions. This doctoral dissertation research examines how residents of an ancient city managed their forest resources and developed sustainable agricultural practices. The study of ancient plant remains, environmental DNA (eDNA), pollen, and Lidar-based forest surveys, provide information about land and forest resource utilization patterns across multiple spatial and temporal scales. In addition to supporting the training of a graduate student, findings of the project are being communicated via public presentations, electronic media platforms and journal articles to inform modern decision-making in the neotropical land management and across the globe. The research goal of this project is to investigate how the occupants of an ancient city managed their forest resources and developed agricultural practices that enabled them to sustain large populations for many centuries. The project hypothesizes that over time they shifted from a wide-ranging extractive mode of resource acquisition to a more intensive, yet sustainable, mode of forest utilization and agricultural production. The researchers predict that as population increases, there will be evidence of: (1) a transition from naturally occurring, dominant forest species to more domesticated trees and shrubs, (2) a more intensive exploitation of wetlands for agriculture and (3) a shift from a maize-based diet to one more reliant on root crops. The methodological used in this project consists of Lidar-based vegetation surveys, which provide baseline data, combined with analyses of carbonized plant remains, and pollen from excavations, which offers a robust record of plants species used through time. This project enhances scientific understanding of the complexities of life in a major community that endured for over a millennium and illuminate larger issues concerning the impact of a complex society on its surrounding environment. 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.