Bioarchaeological Reconstruction of Early and Middle Holocene Human Adaptations Across the Sahara-Sahel Border

人类社会正在努力适应气候变化，几十年的史前考古研究已经确定，这并不是一个独一无二的现代问题。事实上，人类几千年来一直在与荒漠化和生态系统退化的循环作斗争，并将在未来继续这样做。因此，对过去生活方式的推断被用来更好地为现在和未来的决策提供信息是至关重要的。利用跨学科的方法，现在有可能以前所未有的细节研究过去人民的生活方式，描绘出不同的饮食和经济战略、社区组织模式和健康经验。当考古调查所提供的深度时间视角提供信息时，这种推论尤其有力。虽然与所有社会相关，但健康与环境的相互作用对整个发展中世界的弱势社区尤其重要，本研究项目的重点所在的尼日尔(非洲西北部)就是如此。该项目召集了一个国际合作者团队，对一个新发现的古湖进行生物考古、地质和古环境调查，这个古湖在全新世早期和中期(8600到4500年前)曾是数千人的家园，但今天位于撒哈拉沙漠中部。这个研究小组特别关注的是一系列墓地，其中包括在沙丘内发现的数百个人类墓地，这些沙丘曾经是现已灭绝的湖泊中的岛屿。调查人员将利用沉积学和动物考古学分析重建这个湖的性质和周围的栖息地，并将这些数据与中断500-1000年的两个埋葬占领阶段相关联。对人类墓葬的密集挖掘将对遗传的骨牙标记、病理学、生物力学特性和生物地球化学特征进行分析，这些分析将用于检查职业之间的遗传关系，推断随着湖泊干涸，饮食质量和多样性如何变化，重建居民的流动性和季节性迁徙模式，并记录疾病和人口健康的模式。通过将这些数据集与重建的古环境和气候相结合，该项目将提供对人类组织战略重大转变的原因和影响的见解。特别是，这项研究将阐明食物多样性是否随着干旱程度的增加而增加，以及人类群落的规模是扩大还是缩小，或者在季节性和更长的生命周期间隔内变得更具或更少流动性。在发现Gobero之前，由于尼日尔考古研究的困难，缺乏许多必要的信息来进行生物和文化分析，尽管尼日尔处于撒哈拉和萨赫勒地区交界处的关键位置。特别是，戈贝罗人类埋葬的密度在这个时期是独一无二的，掩盖了这个已经灭绝的湖泊系统在大约4000年前沙漠条件开始之前的数千年里对北非人民的重要性。来自人类过去的观点可以为现在的决策提供信息，以改善人与环境的协同效应。该项目依赖于来自三大洲的学者的专业知识和思想交流，并将改善培训学生如何最好地研究和了解过去和现在人类状况的重大变化的基础设施。它产生的研究和收藏将通过在线数据库、学术出版物和促进跨学科科学的流行场所与科学界和公众共享。将与尼日尔的学者和学生合作，发展研究和培训关系，以便在尼日尔建立人类学博物馆，开展促进文化遗产的教育活动。这将是为尼日尔濒危的史前资源确立世界遗产地位的更广泛努力的一部分，尼日尔是世界上最贫穷的国家之一？S。

Human societies struggle to adapt to climate change, and decades of prehistoric archaeological research has determined this is not a uniquely modern problem. In fact, humans have been grappling with cycles of desertification and the degradation of ecosystems for millennia and will continue to do so in the future. Therefore, it is critical that inferences about past lifeways are used to better inform decisions in the present and future. Using interdisciplinary approaches, it is now possible to study the way of life of past peoples in unprecedented detail, delineating diverse dietary and economic strategies, community organization patterns and health experiences. Such inferences are particularly powerful when informed by the deep time perspective that archaeological investigations afford. While relevant to all societies, the interaction of health and environment is particularly critical for disadvantaged communities throughout the developing world, as in Niger (northwestern Africa) where this research project is focused. This project assembles an international team of collaborators to conduct bioarchaeological, geological, and paleoenvironmental investigations of a newly discovered paleolake that was once home to thousands of people during the Early and Middle Holocene (8,600 through 4,500 years ago) but is today in the middle of the Sahara Desert. The specific focus of this research team is a series of cemeteries containing several hundred human burials found within sand dunes that were once islands within the now extinct lake. The investigators will reconstruct the nature of this lake and surrounding habitat using sedimentological and zooarchaeological analyses and correlate these data with two burial occupation phases distinguished by a 500-1000 year hiatus. Intensive excavation of human burials will implement analyses of inherited osteo-dental markers, pathologies, biomechanical properties and biogeochemical signatures which will be used to examine genetic relationships between occupations, to infer how dietary quality and diversity changed as the lake dried, to reconstruct residential mobility and seasonal migration patterns, and to document patterns of sickness and population health. By combining these datasets with reconstructed paleoenvironments and climates this project will provide insights into the causes and repercussions of major transitions in human organization strategies. In particular this research will elucidate whether dietary diversity increased with increasing aridity and whether human communities grew or decreased in size or became more or less mobile both seasonally and over longer life course intervals. Until the discovery of Gobero, much of the information necessary to inform biological and cultural analyses was lacking due to the difficulties of archaeological research in Niger, despite its critical position at the intersection of the Sahara and Sahel regions. In particular, the density of human burials at Gobero is unique for this time period and belies the importance of this extinct lake system to peoples of North Africa for millennia prior to the onset of desert conditions circa 4000 years ago. Perspectives from the human past can inform decisions in the present to improve human-environment synergy. This project relies on the expertise and exchange of ideas of scholars from three continents and will improve the infrastructure for training students about how best to study and understand major changes in the human condition in the past and present. The research and collections it produces will be shared with the scientific community and public through online databases, academic publications, and popular venues that promote interdisciplinary science. Collaboration with scholars and students in Niger will develop research and training relationships that will enable the establishment of an anthropological museum in Niger for educational initiatives promoting cultural patrimony. This will be done as part of a broader effort to establish World Heritage status for the endangered, prehistoric resources of Niger, one of the world?s poorest countries.