Doctoral Dissertation Research: Dynamics of Human Technological Development

This doctoral dissertation incorporates ethnoarchaeology, experimental archaeology, and microarchaeology to examine the technological development of early human groups. This study focuses on fire use and habitat arrangement, features that have proven critical importance for understanding ancient human behavior due to their ability to inform important aspects in evolutionary history, such as increasing cognitive complexity, changing social structures, and adaptations necessary for survival. This project offers training to undergraduate and graduate students in analytical methods such as micromorphology, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), phytolith analysis, and microcharcoal quantification. This project will disentangle two critical challenges facing Paleolithic archaeology, identifying the function of hearth features and detecting the presence of habitation materials in the archaeological record. Leveraging ethnoarchaeological data, hearth features with known functions will be sampled for microarchaeological analysis, providing critical analogs that can be used to better understand the function of hearth features found in Paleolithic contexts. Experimental archaeology will involve the analysis of a 14-year-old hearth and habitat feature, which will provide important information on how these features are preserved in the archaeological record. These insights will then be applied to the Middle Paleolithic site which features a series of complex hearths and potential habitat material, allowing for a precise understanding of how ancient groups who occupied this site organized and interacted with their domestic living areas. This multi-disciplinary study will allow for a broader understanding of what conditions are necessary for human technological development. 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.