Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Human Predation Pressure and the Late Quaternary Extinctions in the Cape Ecozone, South Africa

人类通过栖息地退化和破坏、引入入侵物种以及直接收获动植物种群来影响全球生物多样性。考古记录提供了大量证据，证明生活在小规模社会中的现代人类能够对过去的生态系统产生重大影响。人类对过去环境的影响的古老性存在很大争议，特别是关于人类在过去10万年中对巨型动物大规模灭绝的贡献程度。在这个项目中，coPI将评估一个假设，即人类觅食者在更新世/全新世环境过渡期间（1.2 -10万年前）对南非南部海岸沿着大型哺乳动物的迁徙做出了贡献。人们普遍认为，环境变化在这些气候变化中发挥了重要作用，尽管人类对南部非洲气候变化的可能贡献尚不清楚。这项研究将涉及对过去12.5万年来南部非洲考古遗址的动物群遗骸进行分析。主要目的是确定晚石器时代人类（4万年前）是否比中石器时代（约25 - 4万年前）的祖先对大型哺乳动物种群施加了更大的捕食压力。coPI将检查化石有蹄类动物的牙齿遗骸，以重建动物种群的年龄结构，并检查人类捕食压力对野生动物种群的影响。此外，该委员会将确定是否有证据表明在南部非洲发生灭绝事件时，人为资源减少，即人类捕食压力导致野生动物种群密度下降。这将涉及在Boomplaas洞穴，位于坎戈河谷的更新世/全新世过渡的人类生存变化的调查。将研究Boomplaas洞穴动物群遗骸，以确定史前人类饮食的变化如何反映环境变化和/或人为资源减少。关于史前人类觅食者在大型哺乳动物迁徙中可能扮演的角色的争论已经持续了150多年。虽然许多研究都集中在北美，澳大利亚和欧亚大陆，但非洲的研究仍然知之甚少。这项研究的结果将为人类活动和环境变化的综合影响如何结构化南部非洲的生态系统提供新的见解，特别是通过它们对大型哺乳动物种群的影响。该项目还将确定人类对南部非洲动物种群影响的时间深度。这反过来又影响到土著人民的狩猎权和野生动物保护决定，特别是当代生物多样性的命运以及我们为了解和减轻全球气候变化影响所作的努力。

Humans have impacted global biodiversity via habitat degradation and destruction, the introduction of invasive species, and direct harvesting of plant and animal populations. The archaeological record provides abundant evidence that modern humans living in small-scale societies are capable of substantial impacts on past ecosystems. The antiquity of human impacts on past environments is much debated, especially concerning the extent to which humans contributed to mass extinctions of megafauna during the past 100,000 years. In this project the coPI will evaluate the hypothesis that human foragers contributed to large mammal extinctions along the southern coast of South Africa during the Pleistocene/Holocene environmental transition, between 12-10 thousand years ago. It is generally agreed that environmental change played an important role in these extinctions, although possible human contributions to the southern African extinctions remain unclear. The research will involve an analysis of faunal remains from southern African archaeological sites spanning the past 125 thousand years. A primary objective is to determine whether Later Stone Age humans (40 thousand years ago) exerted greater predation pressure on large mammal populations than their Middle Stone Age (~250-40 thousand years ago) predecessors. The coPI will examine dental remains of fossil ungulates to reconstruct the age structures of animal populations and to examine the effects of human predation pressure on wildlife populations through time. In addition, the coPI will determine whether there is evidence for anthropogenic resource depression, a decline in wildlife population densities resulting from human predation pressure, at the time of the southern African extinctions. This will involve an investigation of human subsistence change across the Pleistocene/Holocene transition at Boomplaas Cave, located in the Cango River Valley. The Boomplaas Cave faunal remains will be studied to determine how changes in prehistoric human diet reflect environmental shifts and/or anthropogenic resource depression. Debate over the possible role of prehistoric human foragers on large mammal extinctions has been underway for over 150 years. While much research has focused on extinctions in North America, Australia, and Eurasia, the extinctions in Africa remain poorly understood. The results of this research will provide new insight into how the combined effects of human activities and environmental change have structured the ecosystems of southern Africa, particularly through their impact on large mammal populations. This project will also establish the time depth of human impacts on animal populations in southern Africa. In turn, this has implications concerning the hunting rights of indigenous peoples and wildlife conservation decisions, especially with respect to the fate of contemporary biodiversity and our attempts to understand and moderate the effects of global climate change.