Collaborative Research: An examination of human social and cultural adaptation through archaeological and paleoclimate data from the Aleutian Islands

考古学家花费了大量的研究努力，试图确定过去的气候变化时期是否对人类人口产生了重大影响。就阿拉斯加沿海地区过去几千年的情况而言，现有的数据表明，在很大程度上，答案是？没有多少?？ 海洋生态系统似乎保持相对稳定，即使经历了中世纪温暖期和所谓的小冰河期等气候变化时期。这种概括的一个例外是阿留申群岛东部的乌纳拉斯卡岛。大约4000年前，环斑海豹是一种适应冰的物种，构成了生存基础的重要组成部分。这表明当时的气温比现在要低得多。然而，今天在该地区常见的许多物种（在没有显著海冰水平的情况下）也是4000年前自给经济的重要组成部分。我们的研究旨在试图解决这个明显的矛盾。又冷又冰吗？还是像今天一样，气候更加温和？为此，我们将(a)研究现代和考古黄油蛤的生长模式和壳化学，这将给我们一个关于水条件的指示。我们还将(b)对考古遗址中存在的所有物种进行详细分析，包括收获的物种的年龄组成，作为环境条件的指示。最后，我们将(c)对与海洋哺乳动物狩猎有关的人工制品进行详细分析，以确定4000年前猎人开发出在海冰中狩猎的专门工具包的可能性。由于整个北极地区的沿海社区都面临着重大气候变化可能性的重要决定，研究小组认为，重要的是要有一些？测试用例?这提供了过去不同社区如何应对气候变化的信息。乌纳拉斯卡岛上的考古遗址提供了近4000年来对过去气候变化的适应数据；与了解未来气候变化挑战直接相关的数据。该项目将调查全新世晚期气候变化对阿拉斯加动物生物多样性和人类觅食活动的影响。这是阿留申群岛。这项为期三年的跨学科研究将使用动物考古学、古环境、生物学和海洋学数据来验证一个假设，即晚全新世气候的波动显著影响了阿留申群岛东部的当地环境、生态系统和人类狩猎策略。本跨学科项目将运用人类觅食行为模型来研究气候变化背景下人类-动物-环境的相互作用，主要采用三条证据线：1)利用考古贝类的生长模式和稳定氧同位素来重建当地的古环境；2)将利用几个分类类群的考古动物资料来检验动物的分布和行为是否随着气候变化而发生了变化；3)对人工制品进行分析，寻找适应气候和资源可用性变化的海洋哺乳动物狩猎工具包。更具体地说，研究小组提出了一项研究计划，该计划将使用来自乌纳拉斯卡岛的多个数据集来解决在新冰期期间该地区是否存在海冰和喜爱冰的动物（嗜水动物），这表明史前气候发生了巨大变化。考古学的跨学科性质使它处于独特的地位，可以完成两件事：1)提供关于阿拉斯加湾的生态、气候和资源历史的真正长期数据，这些数据对于理解该地区古代和当代人类与环境的相互作用至关重要；2)与当地阿拉斯加原住民社区和学生、资源管理者和文化资源管理者合作，收集、解释和传播数据和发现。

Archaeologists have expended a lot of research effort trying to determine whether or not periods of past climate change had a significant effect on human populations. In the case of coastal Alaska over the past several thousand years, the available data indicate that for the most part, the answer has been ?not much? ? the marine ecosystem seems to have remained relatively stable, even through periods of climate change such as the Medieval Warm Period and the so-called Little Ice Age. The one exception to this generalization is found on Unalaska Island, in the eastern Aleutians. At about 4000 years ago, ringed seals, which are an ice-adapted species, made up a significant portion of the subsistence base. This suggests that temperatures were substantially colder than they are today. However, many of the species that are common in the area today (in the absence of significant levels of sea ice) were also an important part of the subsistence economy 4000 years ago. Our research aims to try to address this apparent contradiction?was it cold and icy? Or was it generally more temperate, much as it is today? To do so, we will (a) study the growth patterns and shell chemistry of modern and archaeological butter clams, which will give us an indication of what the water conditions were like. We will also (b) conduct a detailed analysis of all of the species present in the archaeological midden sites, including the age composition of what was being harvested, as an indication of what the environmental conditions were like. And, finally, we will (c) conduct a detailed analysis of the artifacts associated with marine mammal hunting to determine the likelihood that hunters 4000 years ago developed a specialized toolkit for hunting in the sea ice.As coastal communities throughout the Arctic face important decisions regarding the possibility of major climate change, the research team believes that it will be important to have some ?test cases? that provide information on how various communities have responded to climate change in the past. The archaeological sites on Unalaska Island provide nearly 4000 years worth of data of adaptation to past climate change; data that are directly relevant to understanding the challenges of future climate change.This project will investigate the effects of Late Holocene climate change on animal biodiversity and human foraging activity in Alaska?s Aleutian Islands. This three-year, interdisciplinary study will use zooarchaeological, paleoenvironmental, biological, and oceanographic data to test the hypothesis that fluctuations in Late Holocene climate significantly affected local environments, ecosystems, and human hunting strategy in the eastern Aleutian Islands. This interdisciplinary project will apply models of human foraging behavior to research human-animal-environmental interactions in the context of climate change using three major lines of evidence: 1) growth patterns and stable oxygen isotopes in archaeological shellfish will be used to reconstruct the local paleoenvironment; 2) archaeological faunal material from several taxonomic groups will be used to test whether animal distribution and behavior have changed through time in response to changes in climate; 3) artifacts will be analyzed to look for adaptations to the marine mammal hunting toolkit in response to changes in climate and resource availability. More specifically, the research team proposes a research program that will use multiple datasets from Unalaska Island to address whether sea ice and ice-loving (?pagophilic?) fauna were present in this region during the Neoglacial phase, suggesting a dramatic change in prehistoric climate. The interdisciplinary nature of archaeology makes it uniquely positioned to accomplish two things: 1) to offer truly long term data about the ecological, climate, and resource histories for the Gulf of Alaska, data that are vital to understanding both ancient and contemporary human and environmental interaction in this region and 2) to collaborate with local Native Alaskan communities and students, resource managers, and cultural resource managers to collect, interpret, and disseminate the data and findings.