The Role Of Environmental Variation In The Appearance Of Agricultural Domesticates

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Dr. Robert Rosenswig, of the University at Albany-SUNY, along with colleagues from Penn State, Arizona State and the University of Central Washington, will undertake research on the origins of food production in Mesoamerica in relation to the changing climate and evolving tropical forest ecology. Food production is one of the most significant developments in the history of the human species. It has long been acknowledged as setting the stage for virtually all subsequent cultural developments by increasing the carrying capacity of land, the degree of sedentism that is possible as well as greater population density. As a result, the production of food was a required prerequisite for the establishment of urban life. Food production is also necessary to underwrite the division of labor within society that allowed farmers to support ever-increasing numbers of non-producers such as political rulers, engineers and scientists. Changes in climate are often posited as resulting in cultural collapse, but is evaluated in this research for its role in the intensification of food production. This project is significant in advancing basic understanding of interactions between the origins of human food production and tropical forest ecology in response to climate change in Mesoamerica, one of the small number of locations in the world where agriculture independently developed.Dr. Rosenswig and his team will examine how drying environmental conditions impact human subsistence practices and how intensified food production, in turn, impact local vegetation patterns. The reconstruction of human occupation and forest floral species diversity in the tropical lowlands of northern Belize, Central America will be reconstructed from 4000-1000 BC to document how food production and settlement patterns were impacted by the changing climate and, in turn, how local vegetation was reconstituted. This will be accomplished by combining: 1. archaeological excavation that documents human habitation; 2. lake sediment coring to reconstruct changing patterns of plant pollen from economically useful species and 3. charcoal that result from human burning of local vegetation to increase soil productivity. Research will focus on the so-called "4.2k BP Event" that caused three centuries of climate disturbance world-wide between 2200 and 1900 BC. Evidence of human settlement patterns and diet from before, during and after this period will be used to evaluate paleoecological evidence of changing species availability and the extent of anthropogenic disturbance through the use of fire.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.