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，旨在确定当地生存适应更新世-全新世过渡期间气候引起的环境转变的动态。它位于西班牙东南部的地中海地区，包括两个系统的考古调查和对研究地区过去十年考古研究中收集的石器的地球化学分析。这些调查沿着连接主要生态区（从地中海海岸穿过山脉到西班牙内陆平原）的三条自然走廊对原材料来源进行取样，并在自然走廊与内陆平原相交的地方确定晚更新世人类群体的考古存在或不存在。每次调查都是该地区首次进行此类调查。之前的两个试点项目导致了当前的论文项目，帮助率先使用质子诱导x射线发射（PIXE）分析，从石器工具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用于按时间尺度将考古遗址联系起来，跟踪人类群体的运动和土地利用模式，并建立具有特定原材料来源的群体的经济领土。更新世-全新世的转变是现代人类之前唯一面临的全球环境转变，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以末次盛冰期（Last Glacial Maximum， LGM）为主，这迫使人口统计学发生重大变化。人类在LGM放弃了乌拉尔山脉以西的欧洲大陆，挤进了划定的难民区。随着冰层消退，更新世开始向我们现在生活的全新世气候过渡，难民向外分散，重新定居欧洲。地中海西班牙是一个例外，在晚更新世和全新世早期之间的间隔仍然是一个相对的连续体。例如，在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。土地利用的变化可以被认为是对气候变化的生态方面的反应，而不仅仅是对新可用土地的反应。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。生存适应的复原力取决于能否获得足够的资源。从这个角度来看，更新世晚期和全新世早期的狩猎采集者生存经济平衡了一系列变量，大致类似于今天气候敏感的发展中国家的当地生存经济。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获取的程度和途径，但两者都没有改变基本的关系。从考古学的角度来看，可以更好地理解社会和生态系统恢复力的最终原因，而不是近因——这是这项研究的更广泛的影响。它承认全球气候变化是当地人类群体以前面临的挑战，并创建了一个概念性框架，在这个框架内检查决策过程，并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.