Reconstructing Ancient Human and Ecosystem Responses to Holocene Climate Conditions

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This research project will reconstruct Holocene climatic conditions to better understand human adaptation and response to past environmental variability. The investigators will use an array of archaeological materials and atmospheric proxies from Northern Rocky Mountain ice cores to better understand human use of alpine environments during periods of dramatic environmental change. This project will provide new insights into what the large-scale environmental changes were, how such changes impacted humans, and what strategies humans used to respond and adapt to these changes. The project will involve a collaboration among tribal communities, universities, agencies, and land managers, with students from tribal colleges and universities being educated and trained to help constitute the next generation of researchers, natural resource managers, and educators. Tribal elders, tribal community members, and students will be brought together to discuss the significance and meaning of the archaeological artifacts from the context of tribal oral traditions and histories and to document and share the findings.The diverse assemblages of plant, animal, geologic, and archaeological material rapidly emerging from melting ice-patches in higher-elevation areas can provide a wealth of information about past environmental conditions and human use of alpine resources. Coupling biological and geochemical records preserved in ice patches with evidence from archaeological sites presents a rare opportunity to document and evaluate human response and adaptation to large-scale climate patterns and pronounced climate events. The investigators will focus on four core questions: (1) What is the long-term climate history of high-elevation regions? (2) How did changes in climate and environmental conditions influence human and animal use of the alpine zone? (3) What were the long-term strategies of indigenous North Americans in response to extreme droughts and cold, wet periods? (4) What do the array of materials exposed from melting ice patches reveal about human capacity for change? These questions will be addressed by evaluating archaeological artifacts, ancient wood, and environmental and climatic proxies (e.g., oxygen isotopes, black carbon, continental dust, charcoal, and pollen) found frozen in ice-cores within ice-patches. The ice-core reconstructions will be compared with records of past hydroclimatic changes from adjacent lake-sediment sites. A subregional index of intensity of human use will be developed by documenting temporal intervals of increased presence/absence and abundance of archeological materials. The project's research outcomes will provide new information about human response to dramatic climate and environmental change, thereby advancing basic understanding of the resilience of socioecological systems.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.