Collaborative Research: Holocene Geology and Anthropology: Paleoclimate, Landscape Evolution, and Human Occupation of the Western Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru

摘要本次合作研究的最终目标是确定全新世气候变化如何影响的喀喀湖流域西部支流流域的景观演变，以及这些支流的全新世景观演变如何影响人类活动。为了实现这一目标，我们将在三个学科的交叉工作：古气候学，河流沉积学和考古学。我们将通过收集和分析来自小型高沉积速率湖泊的沉积物岩心，为西部的喀喀湖盆地创建一个基于代理的高分辨率（年代际）、正确解释的古气候时间序列。我们将从同一地区的三个河谷中生成新的沉积学和地貌数据，并使用这些数据在区域气候变化和基准面的背景下创建流域范围的河流演变模型。而且，我们将产生新的考古数据，这将开始填补我们的早期史前史知识的空白（特别是对史前时期的记录，约。10，000至3500 cal BP）。这些数据将解决重要的问题，盆地的初始占领的性质，定居过程的动力学，并扩大农牧定居点后sedentularization.In这项研究中，我们的目标是产生最好的日期和最好的理解重建全新世降水在热带南美洲。这一记录是回答重要的古气候问题所必需的（例如热带大气的海面温度强迫的性质），但它对我们的最终研究目标也是必不可少的。一旦气候变率是安全的，我们可以解决的问题，在适当的气候背景下的河流景观的演变。的的喀喀湖流域西部全新世河流沉积学主要受降水变化的控制，降水变化影响河流流量和基准面（的的喀喀湖水位）。在对气候和基准面的相关记录有全面了解的情况下，对河流演变的研究很少，因此，这是一个难得的机会，可以增加我们对沉积物加积和下切的速率和过程以及河流对气候和基准面变化的反应中可能存在的非线性的了解。由于河流的变异性是景观演变和现代和古代居住者的生活中的一个关键因素，气候和景观变异性的安全知识将使我们能够解决有关气候变化和人类活动的严重问题。我们将收集的新考古数据将补充盆地其他地方正在进行的工作，这些数据在高度分辨率的古气候背景下收集，并伴随着自然景观演变的良好约束重建，在许多其他研究环境中无与伦比，将使我们能够记录环境和文化变化的相对时间。

ABSTRACTThe ultimate goal of this collaborative study is to determine how Holocene climate variability affected landscape evolution in tributary valleys of the western Lake Titicaca basin and how Holocene landscape evolution in those tributaries influenced human activities. To meet this goal we will work at the intersection of three disciplines: paleoclimatology, fluvial sedimentology, and archaeology. We will create a proxy-based, high-resolution (decadal), properly interpreted paleoclimate time series for the western Lake Titicaca basin by collecting and analyzing sediment cores from small, high-sedimentation-rate lakes. We will generate new sedimentologic and geomorphic data, from three river valleys in the same region, and use those data to create a basinwide model of fluvial evolution in the context of regional climate change and base level. And, we will generate new archaeological data that will begin to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the early prehistory (especially the record of the Archaic Period, ca. 10,000 to 3500 cal BP) of the basin. These data will address important questions about the character of the initial occupation of the basin, the dynamics of the sedentarization process, and the expansion of agropastoral settlements following sedentarization.In this study we aim to produce the best-dated and best-understood reconstruction of Holocene precipitation in tropical South America. This record is needed to answer important paleoclimate questions (such as the nature of the sea-surface temperature forcing of the tropical atmosphere), but it also essential to our ultimate research goal. Once climate variability is securely known, we can address questions concerning the evolution of fluvial landscapes within the proper climatological context. Holocene fluvialsedimentology in the western Titicaca basin is largely controlled by precipitation variability, which affects both riverine discharge and base level (the level of Lake Titicaca). Few studies of fluvial evolution have been done with the complete knowledge of the relevant records of both climate and base level, so this is an unusual opportunity to increase our understanding of both the rates and processes of sediment aggradation and downcutting, as well as possible non-linearities in the fluvial response to climate and base-level variability. Because fluvial variability is a key factor in both landscape evolution and the lives of both modern and ancient occupants of the basin, a secure knowledge of climate and landscape variability will allow us to address serious issues relating climate change and human activities. The new archaeological data we will collect will complement ongoing work elsewhere in the basin and the data, gathered within a highly resolved paleoclimatic context accompanied by a well-constrained reconstruction of natural landscape evolution, unrivaled in many other research settings, will allow us to document the relative timing of environmental and cultural change.