Shetland Islands Climate and Settlement Project: Multidisciplinary Analysis of Environmental Catastrophes on Northern Coastlines

该奖项将支持设得兰群岛气候和定居项目的主要阶段，该项目是一项多学科的国际研究工作，旨在探索气候趋势、北方严重和突然的变化、沿海环境以及人类适应这些环境危机的方式之间的关系，有时也是造成这些危机的原因。该项目的主要阶段将包括一个为期三年的实地、实验室和档案研究项目，该项目将研究北方海岸沙环境偶发性、灾难性不稳定的原因、过程和人为因素。该项目还打算成为灾害考古学的一个案例研究，其研究结果将有助于极端短期环境压力的地质考古学特征的中程理论，以及人类对突发危机反应的人类学。该项目的一个主要目标是评估大规模风暴事件或风暴群在气候变化期间英国设得兰群岛沿海沙的移动中所起的作用，并追踪人类对随后环境灾难的反应。选择设得兰群岛作为地理重点，是因为该地区对与北大西洋涛动等主要气候现象有关的风暴变化敏感，而这些气候现象又在全球变化的长期序列中发挥着动态作用。此外，设得兰群岛拥有多个海岸沙地环境，通过分析丰富的考古、文献和古环境数据，并结合当地居民的传统生态知识，可以研究景观和定居历史。在该项目的中心案例研究中，来自四所美国和四所英国学院和大学的考古学、历史学、地球科学、生物学和空间分析研究团队，将合作调查一个中世纪的城镇，该城镇在世纪后期被埋在邓罗斯内斯的昆代尔的风成沙中，当时是小冰河时代气候变化的极端时期。 将通过生物考古学和物质文化分析研究这场生态和经济灾难，并辅之以对与气候、资源和定居问题有关的当代文件的档案记录调查。对项目区进行探地雷达勘测，结合陆地和湖泊沉积物研究以及土壤分析，将有助于重建泥沙运动、土地使用和沉降变化的历史。对海洋软体动物古动物氧同位素比率的生物学研究将提供从中世纪到前现代时期当地海水温度的独立代用指标，产生的数据将与大规模气候和环境数据集相结合，以评估全球和半球趋势的当地表现。先进的全球定位系统、地理信息系统和其他数字记录系统将有助于收集、组织、分析和存档各种环境、考古和历史数据该项目跨越了许多学科和国界，研究了一种显然是在亚世纪演变的灾难情景中人类与环境的相互作用。年到十年的时间尺度，可能表征许多未来的环境挑战，将面临北方沿海居民作为全球变暖的进展。项目人员将联合收割机研究人员与在北方环境中具有广泛多区域经验的研究人员和教育工作者结合起来，这些研究人员和教育工作者是北方研究的新手。该小组带来的学科和多区域经验的广泛融合也将丰富：（a）参与的本科生和研究生的培训和教育经验;（B）与两所小学的学生和教师的外联活动;以及c）与社区居民的合作项目，他们将参与考古和口述历史研究，世卫组织将在当地出版物和报告中查阅项目结果。

This award will support the main phase of the Shetland Islands Climate and Settlement Project, a multidisciplinary and international research effort to explore relationships among climate trends, severe and abrupt transformations of northern, coastal environments, and the ways in which human populations have adapted to these environmental crises and sometimes contributed to them. The main phase of the project will include a three year program of field, laboratory and archival research that will examine the causes, processes and human dimensions of episodic, catastrophic destabilizations of sand environments on northern coasts. The project is also intended to be a case study in the archaeology of disasters, and its findings will contribute to middle range theory on the geoarchaeological signatures of extreme, short-term environmental stresses, and the anthropology of human response to sudden crisis. A key goal of the project is to assess the roles played by massive storm events, or clusters of storms, in mobilizing coastal sands in the Shetland Islands, UK, during periods of climatic variability, and to trace human responses to the succeeding environmental catastrophes. Shetland has been chosen as a geographical focus because it is a region sensitive to storm variability linked with major climate phenomena such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which in turn play dynamic roles in extended sequences of global change. In addition, Shetland has multiple coastal sand environments where landscape and settlement histories may be researched through analyzing rich archaeological, documentary and paleoenvironmental data, and through incorporating traditional ecological knowledge from local residents.In the project's central case study a team of researchers in archaeology, history, geoscience, biology and spatial analysis, drawn from four US and four UK colleges and universities, will collaborate in investigating a medieval township that was buried in eolian sand at Quendale, Dunrossness, in the later 17th century CE, a time of extreme Little Ice Age climate shifts. This ecological and economic disaster will be studied through bioarchaeological and material culture analyses, complemented by an archival records survey of contemporary documents relating to issues of climate, resources and settlement. Ground penetrating radar surveys of the project area, in conjunction with studies of terrestrial and lake sediments, and soils analyses, will facilitate reconstruction of the history of sand movements, land use, and settlement changes. A biological study of oxygen isotope ratios in marine mollusc archaeofaunas will provide an independent proxy measure of local sea temperatures from medieval to pre-modern times, yielding data that will be integrated with larger-scale climate and environmental datasets to assess local expressions of global and hemispheric trends. Advanced GPS, GIS and other digital recording systems will facilitate the collection, organization, analysis and archiving of diverse environmental, archaeological and historical dataThe project crosses many disciplinary and national boundaries in studying human-environment interactions in a type of catastrophe scenario that apparently evolved on the sub-annual to decadal time scales that may characterize many future environmental challenges that will be faced by northern coast- dwellers as global warming proceeds. Project personnel combine researchers with extensive multi-region experience in northern environments with researchers and educators who are new to boreal research. The broad integration of disciplines and multiregional experience brought by the team will also enrich: a) training and educational experiences for participating undergraduate and graduate students; b) outreach activities with pupils and teachers at two primary schools; and c) collaborative projects with community residents who will be involved in archaeological and oral history research, and who will access project findings in local publications and presentations.