Unlocking wetland ecologies and agriculture in prehistory through sulphur isotopes.

通过硫同位素解锁史前时期的湿地生态和农业。

• 批准号: NE/W000814/1
• 负责人: Daniel Read
• 金额: $ 13.31万
• 依托单位: UK CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FW000814%2F1
• 关键词: Unlocking; wetland; ecologies; agriculture; prehistory

Since the advent of farming, water has been central to agricultural productivity. However, the way in which people made use of natural water resources in the past, or manipulated these resources to meet their needs, is not adequately understood. While archaeologists can find indirect evidence of water management systems used in the past through the irrigation infrastructure and tools that these practices left behind, or from texts detailing agricultural strategies, they currently do not have adequate methods to directly determine the water conditions a particular field/crop/animal was raised under, particularly in landscapes where the use of wetlands may have been significant. This information is important for several reasons. The harnessing of water resources in the past are thought to have been fundamental to increasing crop productivity, ensuring food security and creating an agricultural surplus; these factors are all thought to have enabled population growth and the development of increasingly complex societies. However, the harnessing of water resources is also thought to have had significant environmental consequences such as a loss of biodiversity and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding these developments and impacts has implications for our current food production systems, especially in meeting the challenges of maintaining agricultural productivity under an ever-increasingly unpredictable climate. To address this issue, our project will develop a new tool for detecting agricultural water use by past populations. Specifically, we will use fossil animal and plant remains to understand water use in agriculture through sulphur isotope analysis. Sulphur in plants and animals comes from the soil upon which the plant grew, or the animal fed. Current data shows that the amount of water in the soil likely influences plant sulphur isotope values. If this relationship can be quantified, sulphur isotopes in archaeological material can be used to infer past watering regimes. Our project will study sulphur isotopes in modern soils and plants in a controlled growth experiment. We will grow plants under a number of different water regimes and measure the plant sulphur isotope compositions. This analysis will allow us to quantify the relationship between watering and plant isotopes, which will then allow us to apply this method to archaeological samples.To test that the method works on archaeological samples we will apply the new method to two specific archaeological case studies, where indirect evidence suggests agricultural developments were linked to changing water availability or use. Specifically, we will analyse archaeological material from the Thames river valley, where agricultural practices have been linked to the natural cycle of river flooding, and from Thailand, where agricultural production of rice is thought to have shift from low-maintenance dry systems to high-maintenance wet systems in response to climate change. These applications will allow us to validate the method, enabling it to be applied to other archaeological contexts. This will facilitate better understanding of how water resources were harnessed in the past in different locations around the world, providing important information on agricultural resilience, sustainability and management under different climate systems; information that is vital to ensuring our current food production systems stand up to the challenges faced by climate change.

自农业出现以来，水一直是农业生产力的核心。然而，人们过去利用天然水资源或操纵这些资源以满足其需求的方式尚未得到充分了解。虽然考古学家可以通过这些做法留下的灌溉基础设施和工具，或者从详细说明农业策略的文本中找到过去使用的水管理系统的间接证据，但他们目前没有足够的方法来直接确定特定田地的水状况/农作物/动物的饲养，特别是在湿地使用量可能很大的地区。该信息很重要，原因有几个。过去，水资源的利用被认为对于提高作物生产力、确保粮食安全和创造农业剩余至关重要；人们认为这些因素都促成了人口增长和日益复杂的社会的发展。然而，水资源的利用也被认为产生了重大的环境后果，例如生物多样性的丧失和温室气体排放的增加。了解这些发展和影响对我们当前的粮食生产系统具有重要意义，特别是在应对日益不可预测的气候下维持农业生产力的挑战方面。为了解决这个问题，我们的项目将开发一种新工具来检测过去人口的农业用水情况。具体来说，我们将利用动物和植物化石遗骸，通过硫同位素分析来了解农业用水。植物和动物中的硫来自植物生长或动物饲养的土壤。目前的数据表明，土壤中的水量可能会影响植物硫同位素值。如果这种关系可以量化，考古材料中的硫同位素就可以用来推断过去的浇水方式。我们的项目将通过受控生长实验研究现代土壤和植物中的硫同位素。我们将在多种不同的水况下种植植物并测量植物的硫同位素组成。这种分析将使我们能够量化浇水和植物同位素之间的关系，从而使我们能够将该方法应用于考古样本。为了测试该方法对考古样本的有效性，我们将把新方法应用于两个特定的考古案例研究，间接证据表明农业发展与水资源供应或使用的变化有关。具体来说，我们将分析来自泰晤士河谷的考古材料，那里的农业实践与河流洪水的自然循环有关，以及泰国的考古材料，那里的水稻农业生产被认为已经从低维护的干旱系统转向了高维护的干旱系统。维护湿系统以应对气候变化。这些应用将使我们能够验证该方法，使其能够应用于其他考古环境。这将有助于更好地了解世界各地过去如何利用水资源，提供有关不同气候系统下农业复原力、可持续性和管理的重要信息；对于确保我们当前的粮食生产系统能够应对气候变化所面临的挑战至关重要的信息。

项目成果

Iso-Wetlands: unlocking wetland ecologies and agriculture in prehistory through sulfur isotopes

Iso-Wetlands：通过硫同位素解锁史前湿地生态和农业

• DOI: http://dx.10.14324/111.444.ai.2022.11
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Archaeology International
• 影响因子: 0.6
• 作者: Stevens R