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

高海拔生态系统仍然被广泛认为是自然和人为的转变，一般被认为是集中在低海拔和后期。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，人类在过去20 ka最干旱的时期撤退到哪里的问题仍然很棘手。根据以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，对研究区域的四次勘察，我们对最初陈述的长期信念提出了挑战。由于非洲山区群岛的湿度较高，非洲高山环境不仅是植物和动物的潜在冰川避难所，而且也是人类的避难所。除其他外，这一想法得到了以下事实的支持：埃塞俄比亚高原人在遗传上适应高海拔缺氧，这表明他们至少在进化时间尺度上存在于较高地区的部分地区。- 在最近的一次勘测旅行中，在3，700米至4，100米之间发现了显示严重磨损的石制品的表面散布，这可能是第一次表明Sanetti高原上存在石工人。- 横跨高原的埃里卡的孤立格罗夫斯树丛的镶嵌不能用气候梯度来解释，但表明非洲-阿尔卑斯荒原的人为和基于火的形状。因此，我们假设不是一个晚，但早期的非洲高山占领表示为“山流亡假说”。因此，该研究单位将侧重于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，并确定和量化塑造研究区域生态演变的自然和人为驱动因素和过程。为了解决山地流放假说所引起的研究问题，并检验该假说本身，设计了一种多学科和多代理的方法，该方法结合了现有的以及新开发的和补充的方法，该方法侧重于环境变化的人文方面（P1 -考古学和考古动物学，P2 -人为土壤和人类活动强度）和环境变化的非自然方面（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理）。古生态学调查（P4 -古生态学）将各个调查连接起来，重点是花粉，孢子和宏体化石分析，并区分人类和自然信号。为了完成实现总体目标所需的科学清单，提供了相关的基线环境和生态信息（P3 -环境基线评估），所有数据集都被合并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).