Beyond lake settlements:Studying Neolithic environmental changes and human impact at small lakes in Swizerland, Germany and Austria

瑞士、德国和奥地利的史前湖村遗址已经有150多年的历史了。2011年，其中100多个被联合国教科文组织列为世界文化遗产。湖泊聚落区主要可追溯到新石器时代（包括铜器时代）和青铜时代，代表了阿尔卑斯山北麓早期的定居化阶段。尽管在物质文化、聚落动态、经济和生态方面进行了大量重要的研究，但迄今为止，人们的注意力几乎完全集中在位于较大的前阿尔卑斯湖泊的经典遗址上。我们的方案侧重于小型浅湖及其周边环境，以便在景观层面上获得关于自然环境和人类影响的新的高分辨率数据。最近的古生态学研究表明，小型浅湖保存了未受干扰的层状年沉积物，具有生成关于植被、古气候和人类影响的超高分辨率历时数据的潜力。在复杂的考古景观中，有三个微区域包含合适的小湖泊，这些区域本身目前以不同的分辨率被理解，为项目伙伴提出的相互关联的跨学科研究方案提供了重点。总体目标是整合微观区域、区域和宏观区域研究，以便更好地了解大尺度适应过程和长期的人为影响。

The prehistoric lake village sites of Switzerland, Germany and Austria have been known for more than 150 years. Over one hundred of them were accorded UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status in 2011. Mainly dating to the Neolithic (including Copper Age) and Bronze Age, the zone of lacustrine settlement represents an early phase of sedentarization in the northern foothills of the Alps. Despite much significant research on material culture, settlement dynamics, economy and ecology, the focus has hitherto been almost exclusively on the classic sites situated on the larger pre-Alpine lakes. Our proposal focusses on small shallow lakes and their immediate setting, in order to obtain new high-resolution data on natural environment and human impact at a landscape level. Recent palaeoecological investigation suggests that small shallow lakes preserve undisturbed laminated annual sediments with potential for generating ultra-high-resolution diachronic data on vegetation, palaeoclimate and human impact. Three micro regions containing suitable small lakes set within complex archaeological landscapes that themselves are currently understood at varying levels of resolution, provide the foci for the interlinked interdisciplinary research programmes proposed by the project partners. The overall aim is to integrate micro-regional, regional, and macro-regional studies so as to gain a better understanding of large-scale processes of adaptation and anthropogenic impact over time.