Collaborative Research: Reconstructing Prehistoric Land-Use Patterns in the Lower Rio Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico

湖泊和湿地中保存的沉积物和生物材料提供了丰富的生态档案，记录了气候变化或人为影响造成的植被群落过去的变化。它们还可以提供有关过去人类社会如何组织以及如何使用自然资源的见解。Río Verde早期农业景观项目（RVEAL项目）的重点是了解景观尺度上的史前土地利用动态。这项研究将重建下里奥维德山谷，瓦哈卡，墨西哥在过去的4000年的植被和农业历史。沉积物芯已收集到十个河口，湖泊和考古设置在山谷中。该项目将在每个地点进行详细的多代理古生态调查。研究人员将分析沉积物地层学、宏观和微观木炭、花粉、植硅石和稳定碳同位素特征，以记录史前农业造成的植被和土地利用变化。将在关键地层位置对沉积物岩心进行放射性碳年代测定，以确定年代。将以准十年抽样间隔进行多代理分析。详细的古生态数据将补充现有的考古数据，从而提供一个独特的机会，了解史前土地利用模式在空间尺度上，是直接可比的社会和政治变化的山谷。传统的中美洲前西班牙时期的土地利用历史来自于对湖泊沉积物的单点古生态学分析，通过这些分析，重建了对植被分布和农业森林砍伐的广泛区域认识。RVEAL项目超越了这一区域分析，并将重点放在利用古生态记录在当地景观规模的重建。这项研究将使建设一个复杂的多尺度模型prehispanic土地利用和景观变化，将短期和当地的长期，区域的过程的理解。该项目将为研究人类长期使用土地对热带生态系统的影响作出重要贡献，并将使用一个理论框架，以便在其他地方开展类似的研究活动。该项目将为美国和墨西哥的本科生和研究生提供研究机会。研究小组还与地球博物馆的工作人员合作，开发博物馆展品，详细介绍研究过程和发现。

Sedimentary and biological materials preserved in lakes and wetlands provide an ecologically rich archive of past changes in vegetation communities resulting from climate changes or anthropogenic impacts. They may also provide insights into how past human societies were organized and how they used natural resources. The focus of the Río Verde Early Agricultural Landscape Project (Project RVEAL) is to understand prehistoric land use dynamics at landscape scales. The research will reconstruct the vegetation and agricultural history of the Lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico for the last ~4000 years. Sediment cores have been collected from ten estuarine, lake and archaeological settings in the valley. The project will undertake detailed multi-proxy paleoecological investigations at each site. Researchers will analyze the sediment stratigraphy, macroscopic and microscopic charcoal, pollen, phytoliths and stable carbon isotope signatures to document vegetation and land use changes resulting from prehistoric agriculture. The sediment cores will be radiocarbon dated at key stratigraphic locations in order to develop a chronology. The multi-proxy analyses will be undertaken at a quasi-decadal sampling interval. The detailed paleoecological data will complement existing archaeological data and thus provide a unique opportunity to understand prehistoric land use patterns at a spatial scale that is directly comparable to social and political changes within the valley. Traditionally prehispanic land use history in Mesoamerica is derived from single site paleoecological analyses of lake sediments by which broad scale regional understandings of vegetation distribution and forest clearance for agriculture are reconstructed. Project RVEAL moves beyond this regional analysis and will focus on reconstruction at the local landscape scale using the paleoecological record. The research will enable the construction of a sophisticated multiscalar model of prehispanic land use and landscape change that integrates understandings of short-term and local processes with long-term, regional ones. The project will provide an important contribution to research on the impacts of prolonged human land use in tropical ecosystems and will use a theoretical framework that may permit implementation of comparable research activities elsewhere. This project will offer research opportunities for both American and Mexican undergraduate and graduate students. The research team is also partnering with personnel at the Museum of the Earth to develop museum exhibits detailing the research process and findings.