Abrupt Holocene climate change as an important factor for human migration in West Greenland
Abrupt Holocene climate change as an important factor for human migration in West Greenland
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1101708108
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发表时间：
2011-06-14
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Anderson, N. John
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
D'Andrea, William J.;Huang, Yongsong;Anderson, N. John
过去 4500 年来，西格陵兰经历了多次人类殖民和文化转型。然而，对这些大规模人类迁徙的解释多种多样，包括气候因素、适应阻力、经济边缘化、商业探索和敌对邻里互动。由于缺乏定居点附近的定量古气候重建，以及格陵兰冰盖顶部冰芯得出的全新世温度的相对稳定性，评估气候变化的潜在作用变得复杂。在这里，我们根据格陵兰岛西部两个湖泊沉积物中的烯酮不饱和度提供了过去 5,600 年的高分辨率温度记录。我们发现，过去4500年的主要气温变化发生得很突然（几十年之内），并且与萨卡克、多塞特和挪威文化的定居和废弃的考古记录同时发生，这表明气温的突变深刻地影响了该地区的人类文明。西格陵兰岛的温度变化与爱尔兰的温度变化在百年到千年的时间尺度上表现出反相关系，类似于与北大西洋涛动相关的年际到数十年的温度跷跷板。
West Greenland has had multiple episodes of human colonization and cultural transitions over the past 4,500 y. However, the explanations for these large-scale human migrations are varied, including climatic factors, resistance to adaptation, economic marginalization, mercantile exploration, and hostile neighborhood interactions. Evaluating the potential role of climate change is complicated by the lack of quantitative paleoclimate reconstructions near settlement areas and by the relative stability of Holocene temperature derived from ice cores atop the Greenland ice sheet. Here we present high-resolution records of temperature over the past 5,600 y based on alkenone unsaturation in sediments of two lakes in West Greenland. We find that major temperature changes in the past 4,500 y occurred abruptly (within decades), and were coeval in timing with the archaeological records of settlement and abandonment of the Saqqaq, Dorset, and Norse cultures, which suggests that abrupt temperature changes profoundly impacted human civilization in the region. Temperature variations in West Greenland display an antiphased relationship to temperature changes in Ireland over centennial to millennial timescales, resembling the interannual to multidecadal temperature seesaw associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation.