DDRIG: Soil-Stratigraphy and Landscape Evolution in Subarctic Lowlands: A Paleoenvironmental Framework for Human Colonization and Occupation of Eastern Beringia

DDRIG：亚北极低地的土壤地层学和景观演化：人类殖民和占领东白令海峡的古环境框架

• 批准号: 1636716
• 负责人: Vance Holliday
• 金额: $ 2.97万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2019-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1636716&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DDRIG; Soil; Stratigraphy; Landscape; Evolution

This award will support the research of graduate student Jennifer Kielhofer to recreate the prehistoric landscape of eastern Beringia approximately 14,000 years ago. Beringia is the area between Alaska and Russia that is currently covered by the Bering Sea, but 14,000 years ago was dry land, prior to the rise in sealevel that occurred when the massive North American Ice Sheets melted. Understanding what the landscape looked like at this time will give us insights into the early human migrations across this landscape that occurred during this time period. Knowing this will give scientists and interested members of the public a better understanding of what resources were available for these early migrants to exploit for food, shelter, and clothing. How difficult the landscape was to traverse and how long this would take. These are questions important to answer in order to have a full picture of how the ancestors of contemporary Native American peoples migrated to North America. The proposed research uses buried soils as indicators of landscape evolution within lowland terrestrial settings of subarctic central Alaska. This work provides a paleoenvironmental framework for human colonization of eastern Beringia ~14,000 to 8,000 calibrated years before present (cal. B.P.). Using the "soil catena" approach, this project explores the relationship between past soil formation and climatic variability on various temporal and spatial scales. Buried soils are generally associated with early archaeological occupations in central Alaska, so it is critical to understand the environmental factors that influenced soil formation and the archaeological record. Many studies assert a link between global-scale millennial climatic variability and past soil formation in the study region, but more recent research argues that local disturbance cycles may have had a significant impact on soil formation. This project hypothesizes that both broader scale climatic change and local disturbance cycles influenced soil formation, and aims to develop a high-resolution micromorphological (soil petrographic) dataset to test this hypothesis. Major research objectives are to: 1) develop a highresolution record of landscape evolution, based on changes in past soil development across an elevational transect in the study catchment, 2) augment terrestrial paleoenvironmental records and compare them directly to archaeological datasets, and finally, 3) assess potential environmental impacts on human ecology and land use in lowland subarctic settings.

该奖项将支持研究生Jennifer Kielhofer的研究，以重现大约14，000年前白令吉亚东部的史前景观。 白令海是阿拉斯加和俄罗斯之间的地区，目前被白令海覆盖，但14，000年前是干燥的土地，在北美冰盖融化时发生海平面上升之前。 了解当时的景观将使我们深入了解这一时期发生的早期人类迁移。 了解这一点将使科学家和感兴趣的公众更好地了解这些早期移民可以利用哪些资源来获得食物，住所和衣服。 穿越这片土地有多难，需要多长时间。 为了全面了解当代美洲原住民的祖先是如何迁移到北美的，这些问题都是必须回答的。 拟议的研究使用埋藏的土壤作为亚北极阿拉斯加中部低地陆地环境内景观演变的指标。这项工作提供了一个古环境框架，人类殖民东白令海约14,000至8,000校准年前（cal. B. P.）。该项目采用“土壤链”方法，探讨过去土壤形成与气候变化在不同时间和空间尺度上的关系。埋藏的土壤通常与阿拉斯加中部的早期考古活动有关，因此了解影响土壤形成和考古记录的环境因素至关重要。许多研究断言，全球尺度的千年气候变化和过去的土壤形成在研究区域之间的联系，但最近的研究认为，当地的干扰周期可能有显着的影响土壤形成。该项目假设，更大范围的气候变化和当地的干扰周期影响土壤的形成，并旨在开发一个高分辨率的微形态（土壤岩相）数据集来测试这一假设。主要的研究目标是：1）开发一个高分辨率的景观演变记录，在过去的土壤发展的变化的基础上，在研究流域的海拔样带，2）增加陆地古环境记录，并将其直接与考古数据集，最后，3）评估潜在的环境影响人类生态和土地利用的低地亚北极设置。