FESD Type I: Earth System Dynamics and its Role in Human Evolution in Africa

FESD I 型：地球系统动力学及其在非洲人类进化中的作用

• 批准号: 1338553
• 负责人: Andrew Cohen
• 金额: $ 478万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1338553&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: FESD; Type; Earth; System; Dynamics

This project will collect and analyze lake sediment drill core records from key localities in Kenya and Ethiopia to vastly improve our understanding of the paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic context of human evolution. Understanding the relationship between climate/environmental history and human evolution is an enduring challenge of broad scientific and public interest. Key questions include: How did climate and tectonic change interact during critical intervals of human evolution? What processes regulated this history on local to regional scales? Do local records of climate change reflect global changes? How and when did climatic and tectonic processes combine to influence early human habitats, resources, and demography? Were these changing conditions related to evolutionary processes and events in the human lineage? Research on this relationship cuts across Earth, environmental and anthropological sciences. The sediment drill cores we will collect from lake deposits will provide detailed and highly resolved records of environmental history. Through data collection and modeling we aim to fundamentally transform the debate concerning how environmental dynamics at global, regional and local scales may have shaped human evolutionary history.The project will obtain continuous paleoenvironmental records by drilling long cores from five high-priority areas in Ethiopia (N. Awash River and Chew Bahir areas) and Kenya (W. Turkana, Tugen Hills and southern Kenya Rift/Lake Magadi) where highly-resolved, continuous lacustrine paleoclimate records can be collected through important time intervals in the same basins that contain fossils and artifacts. Rather than assume a linkage between environmental history and evolution, we designed this study as a series of data collection and modeling exercises to explicitly test overarching and local hypotheses about environmental and evolutionary dynamics. Our high-resolution (centennial-millennial scale) and datable geochemical, paleoecological and sedimentological records will allow quantitative reconstruction of paleoprecipitation, paleotemperature, paleohydrology and geomorphic evolution at a regional scale. We will correlate these records using high-resolution tephrostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy and other geochronological techniques to adjacent exposures that contain hominin and other vertebrate fossils, and artifacts, as well as to nearby marine records. We will develop predictive numerical models of environmental change and ecosystem response during critical intervals of human evolution and evaluate these models against our new, high-resolution records. These experiments will examine how landscape and climate change across a hierarchy of temporal and spatial scales impacts the durability and predictability of critical ecosystem resources. They will allow us to evaluate the importance of climatic thresholds and abrupt environmental changes and better understand the earth system dynamics that might have shaped the record of human evolution. Our modeling will generate new, testable hypotheses of human evolution/Earth system dynamics, including possible feedbacks from evolving hominin populations to their environments. Our project will create a key data set for addressing fundamental, existential questions for humanity. We will provide training and internship opportunities for 16 American graduate students, 2 post-docs and 10 undergraduates, and numerous training opportunities for African student and professional participants during the field and initial core description phase of the project. We have also planned significant investment in informal education, through a 3-D video project and outreach activities we will coordinate with our three museum partners (Smithsonian Institution, National Museums of Kenya and Ethiopia), both during and following the drilling phase.

该项目将收集和分析从肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚主要地区的湖泊沉积物钻头记录，以极大地提高我们对人类进化的古环境和古气候环境的理解。了解气候/环境史与人类进化之间的关系是广泛的科学和公共利益的持久挑战。关键问题包括：在人类进化的关键间隔期间，气候和构造变化如何相互作用？哪些过程对本地至区域量表进行了规范？当地的气候变化记录是否反映了全球变化？气候和构造过程如何以及何时影响以影响早期人栖息地，资源和人口统计学？这些变化的条件是否与人类血统中的进化过程和事件有关？关于这种关系的研究削减了地球，环境和人类学科学。 我们将从湖泊矿床中收集的沉积钻芯将提供环境历史的详细且高度解决的记录。 Through data collection and modeling we aim to fundamentally transform the debate concerning how environmental dynamics at global, regional and local scales may have shaped human evolutionary history.The project will obtain continuous paleoenvironmental records by drilling long cores from five high-priority areas in Ethiopia (N. Awash River and Chew Bahir areas) and Kenya (W. Turkana, Tugen Hills and southern Kenya Rift/Lake Magadi) where可以通过在包含化石和人工制品的相同盆地中的重要时间间隔收集高度分辨的连续湖泊古气候记录。我们将这项研究设计为一系列数据收集和建模练习，而不是在环境历史和进化之间建立联系，以明确检验有关环境和进化动态的总体和局部假设。我们的高分辨率（百年千年尺度）和数据地球化学，古生态学和沉积学记录将允许在区域尺度上定量重建古沉淀，古植物，古植物，古水学和地貌进化。我们将使用高分辨率的Tephrospraphy，磁层学和其他年代学技术将这些记录与含有人类和其他脊椎动物化石以及文物以及附近海洋记录的相邻暴露相关联。我们将在人类进化的临界时间内开发环境变化和生态系统响应的预测数值模型，并根据我们的新高分辨率记录评估这些模型。这些实验将研究时间和空间量表层次结构的景观和气候变化如何影响关键生态系统资源的耐用性和可预测性。它们将使我们能够评估气候阈值和突然的环境变化的重要性，并更好地理解可能影响人类进化记录的地球系统动力学。我们的建模将产生人类进化/地球系统动力学的新的，可检验的假设，包括从不断发展的人类种群到其环境的可能反馈。我们的项目将创建一个关键数据集，以解决人类的基本生存问题。我们将为16名美国研究生，2名毕业后和10名本科生提供培训和实习机会，并在现场和该项目的最初核心描述阶段为非洲学生和专业参与者提供众多培训机会。我们还计划通过在钻探阶段和之后的三个博物馆合作伙伴（史密森尼机构，肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚国家博物馆）与我们的三个博物馆合作伙伴（史密森学会，国家博物馆，肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚国家博物馆）进行协调，计划对非正式教育进行大量投资。