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Dissertation
Ancient Demography and Energetics: From Global to Local Scales
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
07/2024
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006917
Abstract
Energy and demography are two key attributes of societies that form the foundation of how we understand culture and therefore culture change. In this dissertation, I explore the ways in which energy flow and expenditure shape the lives of past people to ask some key questions about how we represent energy in the past, what biological functions are prioritized and how do these priorities change during the adoption of agriculture, and where do people choose to live and why do they choose to stay there? I focus on the importance of data management and reuse and models built from them. I develop a global radiocarbon database that follow the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) guiding principle for data management. I develop robust data verification procedures and provide detailed guidance on data reuse and scale and type of questions for which the database is most appropriate. I then use this database to conduct a macroscale analysis on the adoption of agriculture and affiliated energetic changes in three large subregions: the US Midwest, the Desert Southwest, and the Upland Southwest. These three subregions had dramatically different needs to support the creation of a locally productive domesticate, including the investment of energy into the production of irrigation canals in the Desert, the importance of artificial selection for earlier flowering in maize in the Uplands, and the difficulty of developing the Eastern Agricultural Complex ad novo. I focus on the importance of individual metabolic rate when considering societal energy throughput and demography during a time when all three subregions are changing dramatically. Finally, I focus on the microscale with annual resolution data in the Central Mesa Verde region of Colorado, where I try to understand how changing conditions affect settlement persistence in both community centers and hamlets. In this dissertation, I therefore consider the ways in which changing scales necessarily change eligible and appropriate questions to ask, and the importance of answering questions with already available data.
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Details
- Title
- Ancient Demography and Energetics
- Creators
- Darcy Annette Bird
- Contributors
- Timothy A Kohler (Chair)Anne C. Pisor (Committee Member)Erin K Thornton (Committee Member)Ronald K Bocinsky (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Anthropology
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 192
- Identifiers
- 99901152436901842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation