Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Evol Anthropol. 2021 Jan;30(1):8-16. doi: 10.1002/evan.21884. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
Niche construction theory (NCT) has emerged as a promising theoretical tool for interpreting zooarchaeological material. However, its juxtaposition against more established frameworks like optimal foraging theory (OFT) has raised important criticism around the testability of NCT for interpreting hominin foraging behavior. Here, we present an optimization foraging model with NCT features designed to consider the destructive realities of the archaeological record after providing a brief review of OFT and NCT. Our model was designed to consider a foragers decision to exploit an environment given predation risk, mortality, and payoff ratios between different ecologies, like more-open or more-forested environments. We then discuss how the model can be used with zooarchaeological data for inferring environmental exploitation by a primitive hominin, Homo floresiensis, from the island of Flores in Southeast Asia. Our example demonstrates that NCT can be used in combination with OFT principles to generate testable foraging hypotheses suitable for zooarchaeological research.
生态位构建理论（Niche construction theory，NCT）已经成为一种有前途的理论工具，可用于解释动物考古学材料。然而，将其与更成熟的框架（如最佳觅食理论（Optimal foraging theory，OFT））并列，引发了围绕 NCT 用于解释人类觅食行为的可测试性的重要批评。在这里，我们提出了一个具有 NCT 特征的优化觅食模型，旨在考虑考古记录的破坏性现实，同时简要回顾了 OFT 和 NCT。我们的模型旨在考虑觅食者在面临捕食风险、死亡率和不同生态环境（如更开阔或更森林化的环境）之间的收益比时，对环境的利用决策。然后，我们讨论了如何使用动物考古学数据，根据东南亚弗洛勒斯岛上的原始人类弗洛勒斯人（Homo floresiensis）的情况，推断其对环境的利用。我们的例子表明，NCT 可以与 OFT 原则结合使用，生成适合动物考古学研究的可测试觅食假设。
