FOR 2358: Mountain Exile Hypothesis: How humans benefited from and re-shaped African high altitude ecosystems during Quarternary climatic changes

高海拔生态系统仍被广泛认为是自然和人为的转变，通常被认为集中在低海拔和晚。然而，最近的研究挑战了这一观点，对于第四纪环境科学和史前史来说，在过去20万年最干旱的时期，当低地可能变得不适合居住时，人类退到了哪里，这个问题仍然需要解决。根据之前自己和第三方的研究，以及作为本研究单元准备工作的一部分，对研究区域进行的总共四次侦察，我们对最初陈述的长期信念提出了挑战。考虑到非洲山脉群岛较高的湿度，非洲高山环境不仅是植物和动物的潜在冰川避难所，也是人类的潜在避难所。其中，这一观点得到了以下事实的支持：埃塞俄比亚高地人在基因上适应了高海拔缺氧，这表明他们至少在进化时间尺度上存在于部分高海拔地区。在最近的一次侦察旅行中，在3700米至4100米之间发现了表面分散的石头人工制品，显示出严重的磨损，这可能首次表明在萨内蒂高原上有石头劳动人民的存在。-在高原上形成的孤立的三叶草小树林的镶嵌现象不能用气候梯度来解释，但它表明了人类对非洲高山石楠荒原的诱导和以火为基础的塑造。因此，我们假设不是晚期而是早期的非洲高山占领，即“山地流亡假说”。因此，该研究单位将重点重建这一非洲高山环境在空间和时间上的自然和人为历史，并确定和量化形成研究区域生态演变的自然和人为驱动因素和过程。为了解决山地流亡者假说所带来的研究问题，并检验该假说本身，我们设计了一种多学科、多代理的方法，结合现有方法和新开发的互补方法，重点关注环境变化的人类方面（P1 -考古学和考古学，P2 -人类和人类占领强度）和环境变化的自然方面（P5 -古气候学，P5 -古气候学）。P6 -冰川年代学和P7 -地面甲虫作为人类独立的古代用品)。古生态学研究（P4 -古生态学）集中于花粉、孢子和大化石分析，并区分人为和自然信号。为完成达成整体目标所需的科学清单，我们会提供相关的环境和生态基线资料（P3 -环境基线评估），并将所有数据集整合为中央科学分析和综合平台BalePaleoGIS （C2 -中央科学服务）的一部分。

High altitude ecosystems are still widely perceived as natural and anthropogenic transformation is generally considered to be concentrated on lower elevations and late. However, recent studies challenge this view and for quaternary environmental science and prehistory, the question where humans retreated to during the driest intervals of the last 20 ka when lowlands may have become uninhabitable is still demanding. Based on previous own and third-party research and a total of four reconnaissances to the study area as part of the preparation of this research unit, we challenge the initially stated long-held belief. Given the higher humidity of the African mountains archipelago, the afro-alpine environments are a potential glacial refuge not only for plants and animals, but also for humans. Among others, this idea is backed up by the facts that - highland people of Ethiopia are genetically adapted to high altitude hypoxia which indicates their presence at least in parts of the higher areas over evolutionary time scales. - surface scatters of stone artefacts showing heavy abrasion have been found during the most recent reconnaissance trip between 3,700 and 4,100 m which for the first time likely indicates the presence of stone working people on the Sanetti Plateau. - the mosaic of isolated groves of Erica trimera across the plateau cannot be explained by climatic gradients but indicates a human induced and fire-based shaping of the afro-alpine heathlands. As a consequence, we postulate not a late but early afro-alpine occupation expressed as the “Mountain Exile Hypothesis”. Hence, the research unit will focus on reconstructing the natural and the anthropogenic history of this afro-alpine environment in space and time and the identification and quantification of the natural and anthropogenic drivers and processes that shaped the ecology evolution of the research area. To tackle the research questions arising from the Mountain Exile Hypothesis and to test the hypothesis itself, a multi-disciplinary and multi-proxy approach which combines established as well as newly developed and complementing methods has been designed which focuses on both the - human side of environmental change (P1 – Archeology and Archeozoology, P2 – Anthrosols and Intensity of Human Occupation) and the - natural side of environmental change (P5 – Paleoclimatology, P6 – Glacial Chronology and P7 – Ground Beetles as a Human-Independent Paleoproxy). The respective investigations are bridged by paleoecological investigations (P4 – Paleoecology) which focus on pollen, spores and macrofossil analyses and discriminate the human and natural signals. To complete the scientific inventory required to address the overall objectives, relevant baseline environmental and ecological information is provided (P3 – Environmental Baseline Assessment) and all datasets are combined as part of a central scientific analysis and synthesis platform, the BalePaleoGIS (C2 – Central Scientific Services).