Neolithic Goes West: The Environmental Context of Late Neolithic Agriculture in Western and Central Anatolia

新石器时代向西发展：安纳托利亚西部和中部新石器时代晚期农业的环境背景

• 批准号: 2598337
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Liverpool
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2598337
• 关键词: Neolithic; Goes; West; Environmental; Context

Key Words: Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Neolithic, Neolithic Anatolia, Early Agriculture, Human Impacts, Archaeobotany, Anthracology, Environmental Archaeology, Archaeological Science.Starting from approximately 9000 years ago, archaeological evidence indicates that the lifeways of the first cultivators and herders in Southwest Asia underwent significant transformations in habitation practices, domestic farming economies, and material culture and technologies. These shifts marked the start of the geographical expansion and dispersal (via population movements and acculturation) of the Near Eastern Neolithic from its core areas in inland Southwest Asia westwards into new environments. This process presented new opportunities and challenges for the region's first food-producing societies that emerged in the semiarid foothills and river valleys of northern Mesopotamia and the Levant some 2000 years earlier. Some scholars have hypothesised that increasing climatic aridity and human landscape impacts led to societal upheaval, group fission, and settlement abandonment, which motivated early farmers to migrate to the more temperate regions of Western Anatolia. Palaeoclimatic data from the Greenland ice cores indicate that the collapse of the Laurentine ice sheet at ~8200cal BP led to a rapid shift from the warm and humid Climatic Optimum, to extremely cold and arid conditions globally. In Central Anatolia, the 8.2k event has been linked to the final abandonment of large, nucleated settlements such as Çatalhöyuk East, and the beginning of dense Neolithic settlement in Western Anatolia by communities practising fully developed agropastoral economies. However, direct evidence for significant deterioration of vegetation and other landscape resources that could have caused economic decline and societal unrest, is lacking. Furthermore, there is very little data with which to reconstruct the ecological footprint of denser Neolithic settlement in Western Anatolia, and how agropastoral economies were integrated in these more humid and densely wooded environments, including interactions and/or hybridization with pre-existing local forager lifeways.This project aims to fill this knowledge gap by collecting palaeobotanical (wood charcoal) data from select Neolithic sites in Central and Western Anatolia, covering the critical timespan between the mid-7th and late-6th millennia cal BC. The key aim of this research project is to investigate the nature of vegetation changes, people-environment interactions, and anthropogenic impacts, during this period. This will be achieved by reconstructing woodland vegetation before, during, and after the 8.2k event using quantified charcoal data to address changes in woodland composition, cover, and diversity that may be linked to climatic and/or anthropogenic impacts on the local environments (e.g., changes in woodland composition/cover due to deforestation caused by browsing, grazing and/or clearance for cultivation).

关键词：考古学、近东考古学、新石器时代、新石器时代安纳托利亚、早期农业、人类影响、考古植物学、人类学、环境考古学、考古科学。考古证据表明，从大约 9000 年前开始，第一批耕种者和牧民的生活方式西南亚在居住方式、国内农业经济以及物质文化和技术方面经历了重大转变，这些转变标志着地理扩张和扩散的开始。 （通过人口流动和文化适应）近东新石器时代从西南亚内陆的核心地区向西进入新的环境，这一过程为该地区半干旱山麓和河谷中出现的第一个粮食生产社会带来了新的机遇和挑战。大约 2000 年前，一些学者推测，日益严重的气候干旱和人文景观影响导致了社会动荡、群体分裂和定居点废弃。格陵兰冰芯的古气候数据表明，大约 8200cal BP 的劳伦斯冰盖崩塌导致了气候从温暖潮湿的最佳状态迅速转变为极冷的气候。在安纳托利亚中部，8.2k 事件与 Çatalhöyuk 等大型集中定居点的最终废弃有关。然而，缺乏直接证据表明植被和其他景观资源的严重恶化可能导致经济衰退和社会动荡。很少有数据可以用来重建安纳托利亚西部更密集的新石器时代定居点的生态足迹，以及农牧经济如何融入这些更潮湿和树木茂密的环境中，包括与该项目旨在通过从安纳托利亚中部和西部选定的新石器时代遗址收集古植物学（木炭）数据来填补这一知识空白，涵盖公元前七世纪中期到六世纪末之间的关键时间跨度。该研究项目的主要目的是调查这一时期植被变化的性质、人与环境的相互作用以及人为影响，这将通过重建林地植被之前、期间和之后来实现。 8.2k 活动使用量化的木炭数据来解决可能与气候和/或人为对当地环境的影响有关的林地组成、覆盖率和多样性的变化（例如，由于浏览、放牧造成的森林砍伐而导致林地组成/覆盖率的变化）和/或种植许可）。