NSF-EAGER: Eastern Mediterranean Paleoclimate and Ecosystems during the Rise of Early Civilizations (EMPIRE)

NSF-EAGER：早期文明兴起期间的东地中海古气候和生态系统（帝国）

• 批准号: 1821140
• 负责人: Richard Norris
• 金额: $ 4.06万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego Scripps Inst of Oceanography
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-03-15 至 2021-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1821140&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; EAGER; Eastern; Mediterranean; Paleoclimate

Archaeological evidence shows that Neolithic people in the eastern Mediterranean made extensive use of marine fish until about 6000 years ago, after which domesticated sheep and goats and agricultural products became primary staples in the early Bronze Age. This switch in human food supply has similar timing to the end of the African Humid Period when a drop in rainfall in Northern Africa and southern Europe decreased oceanic productivity and dried-up wetlands and savanna in North Africa. Hence, it is possible that the end of the African Humid Period played a role in reducing the yields of marine fisheries exploited by Neolithic people and 'nudging' them to find other resources. This project will reconstruct marine fish abundances through the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition by counting and identifying fish teeth in deep sea sediments. The research will support US involvement in the international "EMPIRE" Expedition to the Aegean and Adriatic seas. Sediment cores collected during the cruise will provide a first quantitative assessment of how those civilizations were affected by available fish stocks. The use of fish teeth is a novel new proxy system for directly studying fish communities and will provide a 'proof-of-concept' test for the method. The results will be significant because fish teeth make it possible to quantify fish stocks in the past, show the relationship between fish communities and environmental change, and assess our impact on fish populations through fishing. Prior to this new work on fish teeth, almost all studies of ocean productivity have focused on unicellular plankton and have been blind to changes in the fisheries resources that societies rely on. The project will obtain samples that can be used to test the links between human resource use and the natural abundance of fish. While archaeologists can tell us how many fish people have been consuming, there has been no other direct way to assess what fisheries resources have been like, or how fishing pressure may have changed those resources over time. This project will examine whether the intensity and pattern of human exploitation of fish is linked to the availability of marine resources by supporting participation in an international research cruise (EMPIRE Expedition) designed to quantify changes in terrestrial and marine ecosystems during the rise of human civilization around the Aegean and Adriatic. The expedition will collect "Kasten" cores that recover the large volumes of sediment needed for fish tooth research. These cores will be sampled using custom-built plastic core boxes (purchased through this project) so that the cores can be delivered intact to the US to allow for evaluation of core stratigraphy using XRF and x-ray imaging. The project will return large amounts of new core material from the Mediterranean to the Scripps Geological Collections where it will be available to the US community through normal sample requests. The project will enable proof-of-concept research on fish communities to be integrated with the larger international effort to understand human impacts on vegetation, soil erosion, ocean production, and paleoclimate in the region. In turn, this environmental work will be linked with human cultural development seen through archaeological and historical data sets.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

考古证据表明，地中海东部的新石器时代的人们直到大约6000年前才广泛使用海鱼，之后驯养的绵羊、山羊和农产品成为青铜时代早期的主要主食。人类粮食供应的这种转变与非洲湿润时期结束的时间相似，当时北非和南欧的降雨量下降，导致海洋生产力下降，北非湿地和稀树草原干涸。因此，非洲湿润时期的结束可能在减少新石器时代人们开发的海洋渔业的产量和“推动”他们寻找其他资源方面发挥了作用。该项目将通过计算和识别深海沉积物中的鱼牙，重建新石器时代-青铜时代过渡期间的海洋鱼类丰度。这项研究将支持美国参与爱琴海和亚得里亚海的国际“帝国”远征。在巡航期间收集的沉积物岩心将首次对这些文明如何受到现有鱼类种群的影响进行定量评估。使用鱼牙是直接研究鱼类群落的一种新的新代理系统，并将为该方法提供一种“概念验证”测试。结果将是重要的，因为鱼牙使量化过去的鱼类种群成为可能，显示鱼类群落与环境变化之间的关系，并评估我们通过捕鱼对鱼类种群的影响。在这项关于鱼牙的新工作之前，几乎所有关于海洋生产力的研究都集中在单细胞浮游生物上，而对社会所依赖的渔业资源的变化视而不见。该项目将获得可用于测试人力资源使用与鱼类自然丰度之间的联系的样本。虽然考古学家可以告诉我们人们消费了多少鱼，但没有其他直接的方法来评估渔业资源是什么样子，或者捕鱼压力可能会如何随着时间的推移改变这些资源。该项目将通过支持参加旨在量化爱琴海和亚得里亚海周围人类文明兴起期间陆地和海洋生态系统变化的国际研究游轮(帝国探险)，审查人类对鱼类的开发强度和模式是否与海洋资源的可获得性有关。探险队将收集“卡斯滕”岩芯，以回收研究鱼牙所需的大量沉积物。这些岩心将使用定制的塑料岩芯盒(通过该项目购买)进行采样，以便将岩心原封不动地运往美国，以便使用XRF和X射线成像对岩心地层进行评估。该项目将从地中海向斯克里普斯地质收藏中心归还大量新的核心材料，在那里，美国社区将通过正常的样品请求获得这些材料。该项目将使对鱼类群落的概念验证研究与更大的国际努力相结合，以了解人类对该地区植被、土壤侵蚀、海洋生产和古气候的影响。反过来，这项环境工作将通过考古和历史数据集与人类文化发展联系在一起。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。