Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Archaeology of Local Human Response to a Global Environmental Transformation

该项目是一个案例研究，旨在确定当地生计适应更新世-全新世过渡期气候引起的环境变化的动态。它位于西班牙东南部的地中海地区，包括两次系统的考古调查和在过去十年的考古研究中收集的石器工具的地球化学分析。这些调查沿着沿着三条自然走廊对制作石器的原材料来源进行了取样，这三条自然走廊连接着从地中海沿岸穿过山脉到西班牙内陆平原的主要生态区，并确定了在自然走廊与内陆平原相交的地方是否有晚更新世人类群体的考古存在。每次调查都是该区域首次进行的此类调查。导致当前论文项目的两个先前的试点项目已经帮助开创了质子诱导X射线发射（PIXE）分析的使用，从石器和用于制造它们的原材料中产生可量化的地球化学特征。 地球化学特征在这里被用来在时间尺度上联系考古遗址，追踪人类群体的运动和土地使用模式，更新世-全新世过渡期是现代人类面临的唯一一次全球环境转型，使其成为了解人类对未来气候变化的潜在反应的最佳模拟。然而，欧洲大部分地区的晚更新世考古记录都是由末次冰期最大值（LGM）主导的，这迫使人口发生重大变化。在末次冰期，人类离开了乌拉尔山脉以西的欧洲大陆，挤进了指定的避难所。随着冰层的消退，更新世开始向我们现在生活的全新世气候过渡，避难所人口向外扩散，使欧洲成为欧洲的一部分。地中海西班牙是一个例外，晚更新世和早全新世之间的间隔仍然是一个相对的连续体。例如，研究区域内没有任何领土因冰川作用而被排除在生存基础之外。土地使用的变化可被视为对气候变化的生态方面的反应，而不仅仅是对新的可用土地的反应。因此，地中海西班牙是研究人类适应更新世-全新世过渡的生态动力学的天然场所。从这个角度来看，更新世晚期和全新世早期狩猎采集自给经济平衡了一系列变量，这些变量大致类似于今天气候敏感的发展中国家的地方自给经济。从全新世到现在，人口密度的指数变化重新定义了什么是足够的，因为技术的差异改变了进入的程度和途径，但都没有改变基本的关系。从考古学的角度可以更好地理解社会和生态系统恢复力的最终原因，而不是最近的原因-这就是这项研究的更广泛的影响。它认识到全球气候变化是当地人类群体以前面临的挑战，并建立了一个概念框架，在此框架内审查决策过程，使他们能够适应一个前所未有的变化世界。

This project is a case study designed to identify the dynamics of local subsistence adaptations to the climate-induced environmental transformation of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Set in the Mediterranean region of southeast Spain, it includes two systematic archaeological surveys and the geochemical analysis of stone tools collected during the past decade of archaeological research in the study area. The surveys sample the sources of raw material, from which stone tools were made, along three natural corridors connecting major ecological zones from the Mediterranean coast through the mountains to Spain's interior plain and establish the archaeological presence or absence of late Pleistocene human groups where the natural corridors intersect the interior plain. Each survey is the first of its kind in the region. Two previous pilot projects leading to the current dissertation project have helped pioneer the use of Proton Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) analysis to produce quantifiable geochemical signatures from stone tools and the raw material used to make them. Geochemical signatures are used here to link archaeological sites on a chronological scale, to track the movement and land-use patterns of human groups, and to establish the economic territories of groups with access to specific raw material sources.The Pleistocene-Holocene transition is the only previous global environmental transformation confronted by modern humans - making it the best available analog for understanding potential human reactions to future climate change. However, late Pleistocene archaeological records in most of Europe are dominated by the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), which forced major shifts in demography. Human populations abandoned continental Europe west of the Ural Mountains at the LGM and packed into defined refugium areas. As the ice receded, and the Pleistocene began its transition to the Holocene climate regimes in which we now live, refugia populations dispersed outward and recolonized Europe. Mediterranean Spain was an exception, where the interval between late Pleistocene and early Holocene remained a relative continuum. For example, no territory in the study area was excluded from the subsistence base by glaciation. Changes in land-use can be considered responses to the ecological aspects of climate transformation and not simply a response to newly available land. As a result, Mediterranean Spain is a natural venue for studying the ecodynamics of human adaptation to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.Resilience in subsistence adaptations is a function of access to sufficient resources. Viewed from this perspective, late Pleistocene and early Holocene hunter-gatherer subsistence economies balanced a set of variables roughly analogous to those of local subsistence economies in climate-sensitive developing nations today. Exponential changes in population density between the Holocene and now redefine what is sufficient, as differences in technology modify the degree and pathways of access, but neither alters the fundamental relationships. An archaeological perspective allows a better understanding of ultimate, rather than proximate, causes of social and ecological system resilience - and that is the broader impact of this research. It recognizes global climate transformation as a challenge that local human groups have previously confronted, and it creates a conceptual framework within which to examine the decision-making processes and that allowed them to adapt in a world of unprecedented change.