Doctoral Dissertation Research: Reconstruction of Environmental Conditions and Human Occupancy Associated with Semi-Polar Settlements

这个博士论文研究项目将调查为什么以前在格陵兰岛繁荣的挪威定居点崩溃或被遗弃在世纪初。 该项目将为格陵兰西南沿海地区的区域古环境以及过去的社会如何应对环境变化提供新的见解。 它将提供一个相互竞争的假设的测试，其中一些假设认为，定居点崩溃是因为与小冰期开始冷却相关的气候条件恶化，但其他人认为，格陵兰人定居点是与环境条件无关的文化和社会经济因素的受害者。 更广泛地说，该项目将加强对生态变化所带来的社会脆弱性的理解，并可能提供新的知识，供该地区的丹麦和因纽特居民以及美国和其他地方的其他半极地环境的居民使用。 该项目将为本科生研究助理提供一个极好的教育和培训机会。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究事业。该项目将寻求确定什么环境条件可能导致格陵兰岛的挪威定居点的崩溃。 博士生将使用有机地球化学代理（也称为生物标志物）分析人类居住，温度和降水的高分辨率记录，这些生物标志物是从格陵兰西南部三个地点邻近挪威遗址的湖泊沉积档案中提取的。 他将在过去1,500至2,000年的数十年尺度上重建人类居住和古环境条件的历史。 他还将分析人类生物标志物，以重建饮食模式的变化，作为对不断变化的环境条件的反应。 该项目将融合地理学，地质学，考古学和地球化学，以产生包括古环境和人类居住重建整合的发现。

This doctoral dissertation research project will investigate why previously thriving Norse settlements in Greenland collapsed or were abandoned in the early 15th century. The project will provide new insights into the regional paleoenvironment of southwest coastal Greenland as well as how past societies responded to environmental change. It will provide a test of competing hypotheses, some of which posited that the settlements collapsed because of deteriorating climatic conditions associated with the onset of Little Ice Age cooling, but others have argued that the Norse Greenlander settlements were victims of cultural and socioeconomic factors unrelated to environmental conditions. More broadly, the project will enhance understanding of societal fragility in the face of ecological change, and it may provide new knowledge that can be employed by the Danish and Inuit residents of this region as well as residents of other semi-polar environments in the U.S. and elsewhere. The project will provide an excellent education and training opportunity for an undergraduate research assistant. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The project will seek to identify what environmental conditions may have contributed to the collapse of the Norse settlements in Greenland. The doctoral student will analyze high-resolution records of human occupancy, temperature, and precipitation using organic geochemical proxies, also known as biomarkers, which were extracted from lacustrine sedimentary archives adjacent to Norse ruins at three locations in southwestern Greenland. He will reconstruct the history of human occupancy and paleoenvironmental conditions at a multi-decadal scale for the past 1,500 to 2,000 years. He also will analyze human biomarkers to reconstruct shifts in dietary patterns as a response to changing environmental conditions. The project will blend geography, geology, archaeology, and geochemistry to produce findings that include the integration of paleoenvironmental and human occupancy reconstructions.