Doctoral Dissertation Research: Reconstruction of Environmental Conditions and Human Occupancy Associated with Semi-Polar Settlements

博士论文研究：与半极聚落相关的环境条件和人类居住重建

• 批准号: 1536383
• 负责人: Raymond Bradley
• 金额: $ 1.59万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1536383&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Reconstruction; Environmental

This doctoral dissertation research project will investigate why previously thriving Norse settlements in Greenland collapsed or were abandoned in the early 15th century. The project will provide new insights into the regional paleoenvironment of southwest coastal Greenland as well as how past societies responded to environmental change. It will provide a test of competing hypotheses, some of which posited that the settlements collapsed because of deteriorating climatic conditions associated with the onset of Little Ice Age cooling, but others have argued that the Norse Greenlander settlements were victims of cultural and socioeconomic factors unrelated to environmental conditions. More broadly, the project will enhance understanding of societal fragility in the face of ecological change, and it may provide new knowledge that can be employed by the Danish and Inuit residents of this region as well as residents of other semi-polar environments in the U.S. and elsewhere. The project will provide an excellent education and training opportunity for an undergraduate research assistant. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The project will seek to identify what environmental conditions may have contributed to the collapse of the Norse settlements in Greenland. The doctoral student will analyze high-resolution records of human occupancy, temperature, and precipitation using organic geochemical proxies, also known as biomarkers, which were extracted from lacustrine sedimentary archives adjacent to Norse ruins at three locations in southwestern Greenland. He will reconstruct the history of human occupancy and paleoenvironmental conditions at a multi-decadal scale for the past 1,500 to 2,000 years. He also will analyze human biomarkers to reconstruct shifts in dietary patterns as a response to changing environmental conditions. The project will blend geography, geology, archaeology, and geochemistry to produce findings that include the integration of paleoenvironmental and human occupancy reconstructions.

该博士学位论文研究项目将调查为什么以前在格陵兰岛蓬勃发展的北欧定居点崩溃或在15世纪初期被抛弃。 该项目将为西南沿海格陵兰的区域古环境以及过去的社会对环境变化的反应提供新的见解。 它将提供对竞争假设的测试，其中一些假设是由于与较小的冰河时代冷却相关的气候条件恶化而崩溃了，但其他人则认为，北欧的格陵兰定居点是与环境条件无关的文化和社会经济因素的受害者。 从更广泛的角度来看，该项目将在面对生态变化的情况下增强对社会脆弱性的理解，并且可以提供新知识，该知识可以由该地区的丹麦和因纽特人居民以及美国和其他地方的其他半极性环境的居民使用。 该项目将为本科研究助理提供出色的教育和培训机会。 作为博士学位论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，以使有前途的学生能够建立强大的独立研究职业。该项目将寻求确定哪些环境条件可能导致格陵兰北部北欧定居点的崩溃。 博士生将使用有机地球化学代理（也称为生物标志物）分析人类占用，温度和降水的高分辨率记录，这些记录是从西南格林兰州西南部三个位置与北欧废墟相邻的湖泊沉积物档案中提取的。 在过去的1,500至2，000年中，他将重建人类占用和古环境条件的历史。 他还将分析人类生物标志物以重建饮食模式的转变，以应对不断变化的环境条件。 该项目将融合地理，地质，考古学和地球化学，以产生包括古环境和人类占用重建的整合的发现。