主要研究 今天

将创新的建模技术与老式的侦查相结合, researchers from the University of New Hampshire have shed new light on the mystery of pre-European archaeological monument sites in Michigan, 尽管他们正在研究的大部分遗址已经不复存在. 这项研究最近发表在《澳门葡京网赌游戏》杂志上 PNAS杂志, provides an important new tool in a field where many monuments have been lost forever to modern development.

研究人员是人类学副教授 梅根·Howey模式 地球与地理空间科学副教授 迈克尔宫, 主要研究的两个, and Crystal 麦克 of the University of Amsterdam and formerly a postdoctoral researcher with Palace — sought to better understand the roles of two different kinds of earthen constructions in Michigan. 这些土丘和圆形土方围栏, 它们通常可以追溯到接触前晚期的1,000 – 1,600 A.D.，在美国东部很常见.S. 却让一代又一代的人类学家感到困惑.

“Understanding how such reconfigurations of the landscape affect societal development is a grand challenge for archaeology,豪伊说。, 詹姆斯·H是谁. 海耶斯和克莱尔·肖特·海耶斯人文学科教授. “Our goal was to identify which spatial and environmental variables were important to the placement of these monuments.”

利用一种叫做最大熵的建模技术, 或MaxEnt, 借鉴景观生态学, the researchers determined that the two types of monuments occupied distinct niches in the landscape. 墓地位于内陆湖泊附近, 可能是为了满足当地的需求，比如食物, 住所和社区, while circular earthwork enclosures — some larger than football fields — were located near rivers.

“这些围栏成为了这些共享的仪式空间. 它们建在河边，所以很多人都可以去,豪伊说。, adding that canoe travel along Michigan’s major rivers enabled the ancestral Anishinaabeg people to transport themselves and their goods long distances.

“Understanding how such reconfigurations of the landscape affect societal development is a grand challenge for archaeology.”

It was the researchers’ interdisciplinary approach that unlocked some secrets to these monuments, 其中多达80%已被摧毁. 嘿，谁有过 研究了密歇根州接触前晚期的纪念碑 十多年了, pored through archaeological archives to create a database of mounds and enclosures documented in Michigan. Of the 60 enclosure locations and 261 mound locations her deep archival dive revealed, 据估计，现在只剩下13个围场和45个土丘.

While using data that scientists call "presence-only" — working with just what you know to exist — may be challenging to archaeologists, “野外生物学家经常处理这种只存在的情况,帕尔斯说。, a remote sensing and geospatial science specialist in 主要研究’s department of Earth science and 地球、海洋和空间研究所(EOS). “你听不到鸟的叫声并不意味着鸟不在那里.他建议利用MaxEnt的力量, 输入地形等环境值, 温度, rainfall and distance from lakes or rivers from the existing and archival monuments to model "habitats" for additional monuments.

"When we turned this cultural process of monument building into a ‘species’, 你可以看到图案弹出,豪伊说。, 他是EOS为数不多的社会科学家之一. "It was really cool to show you can go to limited archival records and tell a new story about the past from these imperfect, 有限的数据集. It was this amazing convergence of ideas, going to that macro landscape ecology level."

豪伊回忆说，的确如此 麦克 — not an anthropologist but a paleoecologist — who first connected burial mounds to lakes and enclosures to rivers after reviewing the data. 豪伊说:“跨学科的工作能让你走出狭隘的视野.

Palace, who studied archaeology as an undergraduate, echoes Howey’s interdisciplinary zeal. "I’ve immensely enjoyed the chance to work across disciplines and dip my foot in the archaeological waters,他说. 两人将扩展这种建模方法, supported by a NASA space archaeology grant to look at the rise of maize in Michigan inland lakes, 整个五大湖地区. 豪伊称这是一个未被充分研究和重视的考古领域.

And their innovative use of MaxEnt for answering archaeological riddles in the absence of existing sites is gaining in popularity. “随着全球发展的继续, 还有越来越多的古迹, 包括纪念碑, 被犁和重型机械擦去了吗, 也许有一天，档案数据会成为唯一幸存的信息,豪伊说。. “像MaxEnt这样的建模方法, 哪一种在有限的数据集下更有效, will become an increasingly important tool for archaeologists to explore the past."

这项研究是由美国宇航局太空考古和一个 美国学术团体理事会 数码创新奖学金.