The potential of historical cisterns as paleoenvironmental and geoarchaeological archive: The Negev Highlands, Israel

历史蓄水池作为古环境和地质考古档案的潜力：以色列内盖夫高地

• 批准号: 420073466
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Markus Fuchs
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/420073466?language=en
• 关键词: potential; historical; cisterns; paleoenvironmental; geoarchaeological

In the past, the Negev Highlands in Israel were characterized by strong settlement oscillations. It is still under debate, if these oscillations were caused by demographic, (socio-)economic, political or climatic variations. As a result of the lack of suitable environmental archives in the Negev Highlands and as consequence of the problematic extrapolation of palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from the surrounding areas, climate variations in the past cannot be evaluated as a factor for changes in settlement activity. New sediment archives need to be established to enable a reliable palaeoenvironmental reconstruction for the Negev Highlands. The aridity of the region in combination with the partially high settlement activity caused the construction of large numbers of cisterns of different types to collect and store precipitation. During cistern usage, the eroded sediments from adjoining slopes accumulated within the cistern and were removed to maintain the installations. After their abandonment, the installations served as ideal sediment traps with undisturbed sediment records. The sediment accumulation within the cisterns bear the potential to be of high relevance for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. The sediments removed to construct the installations and for maintenance purposes contain important information for geoarchaeological research. However, age determination of the cistern’s sediments is of crucial importance for using these sediments as geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental archives. For establishing a reliable chronological framework, a combination of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and micromorphological analyses appears to be the method of choice, since they allow to constrain a time frame for the construction, use and abandonment of the investigated installations. Based on these chronostratigraphic results, the importance of the installations for settlements, agricultural activity and herding can be discussed. In addition, the chronostratigraphy of the cistern’s sediment refill provides information indispensable for the evaluation of water reservoirs as sedimentary archives by means of sedimentological, geochemical and palynological analyses. In this respect, the proposal aims at evaluating the potential of cisterns and their sediments as novel types of sediment archives for palaeoenvironmental and geoarchaeological research.

在过去，以色列内盖夫高地的特点是定居点波动很大。这些振荡是否是由人口、（社会）经济、政治或气候变化引起的，目前仍存在争议。由于内盖夫高地缺乏适当的环境档案，以及从周围地区推断古环境重建存在问题，过去的气候变化不能作为定居活动变化的一个因素进行评估。需要建立新的沉积物档案，以便能够可靠地重建内盖夫高地的古环境。该地区的干旱与部分高定居活动相结合，导致建造了大量不同类型的蓄水池来收集和储存降水。在使用蓄水池期间，邻近斜坡的侵蚀沉积物积聚在蓄水池内，并被清除以维修装置。这些设施在废弃后，成为理想的沉积物收集器，记录了未受干扰的沉积物。沉积物积累的库内承担的潜力是高相关性的古环境重建。为建造设施和维护目的而清除的沉积物含有地质考古研究的重要信息。然而，蓄水池的沉积物的年龄测定是至关重要的使用这些沉积物作为地质考古和古环境档案。为了建立一个可靠的年代框架，光释光（OSL）测年和微形态分析的组合似乎是一种选择的方法，因为它们允许约束的时间框架的建设，使用和废弃的调查设施。根据这些年代地层学结果，可以讨论定居点，农业活动和放牧设施的重要性。此外，蓄水池沉积物再填充的年代地层学为通过沉积学、地球化学和孢粉学分析评价作为沉积档案的水库提供了不可或缺的信息。在这方面，该提案旨在评估西尼罗河及其沉积物作为古环境和地质考古研究新型沉积物档案的潜力。