Collaborative Research: Long Term Accommodation to Climate Change

尼安德特人自150多年前被发现以来，继续激发科学家和普通公众的想象力。来自自然科学和社会科学的研究人员在了解它们的生活方式、它们如何成功地适应上一次冰河时代的极端气候以及它们最终在数千年前消失的原因方面取得了很大进展。考古学家和地球科学家对深层时间和人类与环境的相互作用有着共同的兴趣，他们特别有能力为尼安德特人的研究做出贡献。在这一广泛的背景下，研究人员将领导一项为期三年的尼安德特人适应上一次冰河时代极端气候变化的研究。该项目将为有关人类进化和尼安德特人种群命运的理论做出贡献，告知环境变化、技术和饮食选择在人类进化中所起的作用。其他好处包括实地和实验室培训、科学参与以及为将在国际环境中加入跨学科研究团队的学生参与者提供文化丰富。参与该项目的许多学生将是第一代大学生，他们来自肯塔基州和北卡罗来纳州东部的代表性不足、贫困工作和农村人口群体，否则他们可能没有机会进行国际旅行。这个项目旨在解决一个根本问题：尼安德特人土地利用、人口统计学、技术和饮食的时间变化是否代表着对上一个冰河时代极端气候变化的反应？项目组将从尼安德特人考古遗址正在进行的挖掘中开发补充的考古、年代和古环境数据集，并将其与当地和区域气候记录结合起来，以解决这一问题。之前在该遗址的工作已经确定，该洞穴保存了丰富的文化沉积物和非文化动物遗骸，包括生物分子化合物，如古代DNA。石器和动物骨骼组合将提供尼安德特人技术和原材料选择变化的可靠记录，可以直接与古气候记录同步，并与来自同一地层位置的相关动物遗骸的稳定同位素分析的季节性指标同步。所提出的方法使用放射性碳和铀系列测年来建立年龄控制，使用石器分析来了解旧石器时代人类的决策，使用动物骨骼组合来重建古环境和了解尼安德特人的饮食，并使用沉积学分析来推断遗址形成过程和人类占领的环境背景。综上所述，这项工作将为尼安德特人遗址的适应建立一个完整的古环境和地质考古年表，提供该地区许多其他遗址所缺乏的关键背景。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Neanderthals continue to spark the imagination of scientists and the general public, as they have since their discovery over 150 years ago. Researchers from across the natural and social sciences have made great progress in understanding their life ways, how they successfully adapted to the extreme climates of the last ice age, and why they ultimately disappeared millenia ago. Archaeologists and geoscientists, with their common interests in deep time and human-environment interactions, are particularly well equipped to contribute to the study of Neanderthals. Within this broad context, researchers will lead a three-year study of Neanderthal adaptation to extreme climate variation during the last ice age. The project will contribute to theories about human evolution and the fate of Neanderthal populations, informing on the roles that environmental change, technology, and diet choice played in human evolution. Additional benefits include field and laboratory training, scientific engagement, and cultural enrichment for student participants who will join an interdisciplinary research team in an international setting. Many of the students involved in this project will be first-generation college students from under-represented, working poor, and rural demographic groups in Kentucky and eastern North Carolina who may not otherwise have opportunities for international travel. This project is designed to address the fundamental question: do temporal variations in Neanderthal land use, demography, technology, and diet represent responses to extreme climate shifts during the last ice age? The project team will address this question by developing complementary archaeological, chronological, and paleoenvironmental datasets from the ongoing excavation at a Neanderthal archaeological site) and integrating them with local and regional climate records. Previous work at the site has established that the cave preserves rich cultural deposits and non-cultural faunal remains, including biomolecular compounds such as ancient DNA. Lithic artifact and animal bone assemblages will provide a robust record of changes in Neanderthal technology and raw material selection that can be directly synchronized with paleoclimate records, and with seasonality indicators from stable isotope analyses of associated faunal remains from the same stratigraphic position. The proposed methodology uses radiocarbon and uranium-series dating to establish age control, stone tool analyses to understand the decision-making of Paleolithic humans, animal bone assemblages to reconstruct paleoenvironments and understand Neanderthal diets, and sedimentological analyses to infer site formation processes and environmental context of human occupation. Taken together, the work will establish a complete paleoenvironmental and geoarchaeological chronology for Neanderthal site adaptations, providing critical context that is missing from many other sites in the region.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.