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，这不是一个现代独有的问题。事实上，数千年来，人类一直在努力应对沙漠化和生态系统退化的循环，未来还将继续这样做。因此，利用对过去生活方式的推断来更好地为现在和未来的决策提供信息是至关重要的。使用跨学科的方法，现在有可能以前所未有的细节研究过去人民的生活方式，描绘不同的饮食和经济战略、社区组织模式和健康经验。在考古调查提供的深入的时间视角下，这样的推论尤其有力。健康和环境的相互作用虽然与所有社会都有关，但对整个发展中世界的弱势社区尤其重要，例如本研究项目重点关注的尼日尔（非洲西北部）。该项目组建了一个国际合作团队，对一个新发现的古湖泊进行生物考古、地质和古环境调查，该湖泊在全新世早期和中期（8600年至4500年前）曾经是数千人的家园，但今天位于撒哈拉沙漠中部。这个研究小组的具体重点是在沙丘中发现的一系列墓地，其中包含数百个人类墓葬，这些沙丘曾经是现在已经灭绝的湖中的岛屿。研究人员将利用沉积学和动物考古学分析来重建这个湖泊和周围栖息地的性质，并将这些数据与两个埋葬占领阶段（间隔500-1000年）联系起来。对人类墓葬的密集挖掘将对遗传骨牙标记、病理、生物力学特性和生物地球化学特征进行分析，这些特征将用于检查职业之间的遗传关系，推断饮食质量和多样性如何随着湖泊干涸而变化，重建居民流动和季节性迁移模式，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，该项目将深入了解人类组织战略重大转变的原因和影响。特别是，这项研究将阐明饮食多样性是否随着干旱的增加而增加，以及人类社区的规模是否在季节性和更长的生命周期间隔内增长或减少，或变得更多或更少的流动性。尽管尼日尔处于撒哈拉和萨赫勒地区交汇处的关键位置，但由于考古研究的困难，在发现戈贝罗之前，缺乏生物和文化分析所需的许多信息。特别是，哥贝罗的人类墓葬密度在这一时期是独一无二的，这掩盖了这个已经灭绝的湖泊系统在大约4000年前沙漠条件出现之前几千年对北非人民的重要性。人类过去的观点可以为现在的决策提供信息，以改善人类与环境的协同作用。该项目依靠来自三大洲的学者的专业知识和思想交流，并将改善基础设施，培训学生如何最好地研究和理解过去和现在人类状况的重大变化。它的研究成果和馆藏将通过在线数据库、学术出版物和促进跨学科科学的热门场所与科学界和公众共享。与尼日尔的学者和学生合作将发展研究和培训关系，从而能够在尼日尔建立一个人类学博物馆，用于促进文化遗产的教育倡议。这将作为更广泛努力的一部分，为尼日尔的濒危史前资源建立世界遗产地位。美国最贫穷的国家。

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.