Collaborative Research: Coupling Archaeological shell and novel isotope approaches to reconstruct impact of nearshore productivity change

合作研究：结合考古贝壳和新型同位素方法来重建近岸生产力变化的影响

• 批准号: 2115145
• 负责人: Matthew McCarthy
• 金额: $ 9.35万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Cruz
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2115145&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Coupling; Archaeological; shell

A central issue in archaeology is understanding how people were influenced by past environmental change and how they, in turn, actively shaped ecosystems and organisms around them. To explore those questions, some archaeologists have attempted to understand the origins of hierarchical sociopolitical systems among the densely populated coastal regions. Drawing on the analysis of artifacts, village structure, human subsistence, and high-precision climate records, archaeologists have rigorously debated the impact of hypothesized declines in marine productivity and extended El Niño conditions vs. extended drought. Even in contexts with exceptionally high-resolution marine climate records in the world, interpreting past climatic data can be incredibly challenging where surface oceanography across the region is highly variable. This project provides training opportunities for several undergraduate and graduate students, especially members of historically under-represented groups and Indigenous communities, and will support a wide variety of outreach activities.This research seeks to understand when and why cultural complexity arose along one such region and any links it may have to past changes in climate. To address these issues, the researchers draw on the analysis of novel molecular/isotopes (compound-specific isotopes of amino acids or CSI-AA) in shells obtained from archaeological sites. CSI-AA is well preserved in archaeological shell and can directly record climate-linked shifts in local oceanography, including nutrient sources, baseline primary production, trophic structure, and algal community composition. This analysis offers a new, highly localized source of past climate variation and environmental productivity to help address the central research questions. This project is the first systematic archeological application of CSI-AA analyses addressing broad social, political, and cultural developments in California and will have far reaching implications for archaeological research on past environmental change around the world.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.

考古学的一个中心问题是了解人们如何受到过去环境变化的影响，以及他们如何反过来积极塑造周围的生态系统和生物体。为了探索这些问题，一些考古学家试图了解密集的社会政治体系的起源。根据对文物、村庄结构、人类生存和高精度气候记录的分析，考古学家对海洋生产力下降和厄尔尼诺现象持续时间延长与干旱的影响进行了严格的辩论。在世界上具有异常高分辨率海洋气候记录的背景下，解释过去的气候数据可能非常具有挑战性，因为该地区的表面海洋学变化很大，该项目为一些本科生和研究生，特别是历史上代表性不足的成员提供了培训机会。这项研究旨在了解某一地区何时以及为何出现文化复杂性，以及它与过去气候变化之间可能存在的任何联系。为了解决这些问题，研究人员得出了结论。论小说分析从考古遗址获得的贝壳中的分子/同位素（氨基酸的化合物特异性同位素或CSI-AA）在考古贝壳中保存完好，可以直接记录当地海洋学中与气候相关的变化，包括营养物来源、基线初级。该分析提供了过去气候变化和环境生产力的新的、高度本地化的来源，以帮助解决中心研究问题。该项目是 CSI-AA 分析的第一个系统考古应用。解决了加利福尼亚州广泛的社会、政治和文化发展问题，将对世界各地过去环境变化的考古研究产生深远的影响。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的评估进行评估，被认为值得支持。影响审查标准。