Collaborative Research: An Investigation Into Long Term Human Coastal Adaptation

Jeffrey格洛弗博士（格鲁吉亚州立大学），Trish Bedeirs博士（西北大学），Beverly Goodman博士（海法大学），Dominique Rissolo（加州大学圣地亚哥分校），Derek Smith（华盛顿大学）及其同事将研究墨西哥尤卡坦半岛北海岸人类与环境之间的关系。海岸线在文化和环境方面都是动态的地方，该项目将利用地球、生物和社会科学来阐明人类住区与其海岸线之间的联系，从而探索这种动态。在海岸工作，研究人员必须考虑到地貌，水文地球化学和生态变量的不同范围。当这些变量与考古数据相联系时，最终的结果是一种微妙的理解，揭示了数千年来人们作为动态沿海景观的一部分所面临的障碍和机遇。通过特别关注沿海定居点，这项研究增加了一个急需的层面，越来越多的文献来自世界各地，试图了解文化和环境因素之间的动态关系，在地方和全球范围内，影响了过去人类社会的发展轨迹。这项研究的结果可以作为基础，为更广泛地了解相互关联的变量，现代和未来的群体将不得不抗衡，因为他们适应不断变化的沿海政权。该项目与当地社区分享其研究成果的历史悠久，并将尽一切努力通过大众媒体与更广泛的公众分享相关的研究成果。在过去的三千年里，海平面上升和气候变化极大地改变了这条淹没海岸线的自然地理特征，而玛雅社会见证了神王的兴衰和市场经济的出现。通过将不断变化的古环境的多个方面与更广泛的社会和经济变化相关联，研究团队将处于有利地位，以揭示这些沿海民族在适应不断变化的沿海景观时所面临的挑战和所追求的机遇。邻近的古玛雅港口遗址维斯塔阿莱格雷和科尼尔是研究的重点。科尼尔和维斯塔阿莱格雷相距仅7公里，初步数据表明，在过去的三千年里，沿海沿着的人类居住并不连续，科尼尔和维斯塔阿雷格里的职业历史也没有相互反映。这段断断续续的定居历史为这些沿海民族的脆弱性和复原力提供了诱人的线索。该项目的第一个目的是调查在过去的3000年里，是什么社会和环境因素制约了维斯塔阿莱格雷和科尼尔居民的恢复力和脆弱性。为此，将采用沉积物取芯、水盐绘图、沿海生态调查、考古调查和发掘以及多代用品实验室分析（烧失量、散装碳酸盐的δ 18 Ocarb和δ 13 Ccarb、粒度分析、微体古生物学和AMS放射性碳测年）。通过收集这些数据，项目成员将能够了解这些因素如何随着时间的推移而变化并相互关联，以便研究它们的相互作用如何影响过去的生活方式。

Dr. Jeffrey Glover (Georgia State University), Dr. Trish Beddows (Northwestern University), Dr. Beverly Goodman (University of Haifa), Dominique Rissolo (University of California, San Diego), Derek Smith (University of Washington), and colleagues will undertake research on the relationship between humans and the environment along the north coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Shorelines are dynamic places, both culturally and environmentally, and the project will explore this dynamism by employing earth, biological and social sciences to elucidate the linkages between human settlements and their coastline. Working on the coast, researchers must take into consideration a distinct range of geomorphological, hydrogeochemical, and ecological variables. When these variables are connected with archaeological data, the end result is a nuanced understanding that illuminates barriers and opportunities people faced as part of a dynamic coastal landscape over millennia. By focusing specifically on coastal settlements, this research adds a much needed dimension to the growing body of literature from various parts of the world that attempts to understand how the dynamic relations between cultural and environmental factors, at local and global scales, influenced the developmental trajectory of past human societies. The results of this research can serve as the foundation for a broader understanding of the interrelated variables that modern and future groups will have to contend with as they adapt to changing coastal regimes. The project has a long history of sharing its research with the local community and will make every effort to share pertinent research results with the broader public through popular media.Over the past three millennia, rising sea levels and fluctuating climatic regimes have dramatically transformed the physiographic characteristics of this drowning coastline, while Maya society witnessed the rise and fall of divine kings and the emergence of a market-based economy. By correlating multiple facets of the changing paleoenvironment with broader social and economic changes, the research team will be in a strong position to reveal the challenges faced, and opportunities pursued, by these coastal peoples as they adapted to their changing coastal landscape. The neighboring ancient Maya port sites of Vista Alegre and Conil are the focus of study. Located only 7 km apart, preliminary data indicate that human habitation along the coast was not continuous over the past three millennia, nor did the occupational histories at Conil and Vista Alegre mirror one another. This episodic settlement history provides tantalizing clues to the vulnerabilities and resilience of these coastal peoples. The project first aims to investigate what social and environmental factors conditioned the resilience and vulnerability of the inhabitants of Vista Alegre and Conil over the past 3000 years. It will do this by employing sediment coring, water salinity mapping, coastal ecological surveys, archaeological survey and excavations, and multi-proxy lab analyses (Loss on Ignition [LOI], ¦Ä18Ocarb and ¦Ä13Ccarb of bulk carbonate, grain size analysis, micropaleontology, and AMS radiocarbon dating). With these data collected, project members will be able to understand how these factors shifted through time and correlated with one another in order to examine how their interplay shaped past lifeways.