Neolithic Goes West: The Environmental Context of Late Neolithic Agriculture in Western and Central Anatolia

关键词：考古学、近东考古学、新石器时代、新石器时代安纳托利亚、早期农业、人类影响、考古植物学、煤炭学、环境考古学、考古学。从大约9000年前开始，考古证据表明，西南亚第一批耕种者和牧民的生活方式在居住方式、国内农业经济、物质文化和技术方面发生了重大变化。这些转变标志着近东新石器时代开始了地理上的扩张和扩散(通过人口迁移和文化适应)，从西南亚内陆的核心地区向西向西扩散到新的环境中。这一进程为该区域约2000年前在美索不达米亚北部和黎凡特的半干旱山麓和河谷出现的第一批粮食生产社会带来了新的机遇和挑战。一些学者假设，日益加剧的气候干旱和人类景观影响导致了社会动荡、群体分裂和定居点遗弃，这促使早期农民迁移到西安纳托利亚更温和的地区。格陵兰冰芯的古气候数据表明，洛伦丁冰盖在~8200calBP的崩塌导致了全球气候从温暖潮湿的最佳状态迅速转变为极端寒冷和干旱的条件。在中安纳托利亚，8.2k事件与圣塔尔霍尤克东部等大型有核定居点的最终放弃有关，以及实行充分发达农牧经济的社区开始在西安纳托利亚建立密集的新石器时代定居点。然而，缺乏可能导致经济衰退和社会动荡的植被和其他景观资源显著恶化的直接证据。此外，很少有数据可以用来重建西安纳托利亚新石器时代聚落的生态足迹，以及农牧经济如何在这些更潮湿和茂密的森林环境中整合，包括与先前存在的当地觅食者生活方式的相互作用和/或杂交。该项目旨在通过收集安纳托利亚中西部选定的新石器时代遗址的古植物学(木炭)数据来填补这一知识空白，涵盖公元前7世纪中期和公元前6世纪末之间的关键时间段。这一研究项目的主要目的是调查这一时期植被变化的性质、人与环境的相互作用以及人类活动的影响。这将通过使用量化的木炭数据在8.2k事件之前、期间和之后重建林地植被来解决林地组成、覆盖和多样性的变化，这些变化可能与对当地环境的气候和/或人为影响有关(例如，由于采伐、放牧和/或开垦造成的森林砍伐造成的林地组成/覆盖的变化)。

Key Words: Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Neolithic, Neolithic Anatolia, Early Agriculture, Human Impacts, Archaeobotany, Anthracology, Environmental Archaeology, Archaeological Science.Starting from approximately 9000 years ago, archaeological evidence indicates that the lifeways of the first cultivators and herders in Southwest Asia underwent significant transformations in habitation practices, domestic farming economies, and material culture and technologies. These shifts marked the start of the geographical expansion and dispersal (via population movements and acculturation) of the Near Eastern Neolithic from its core areas in inland Southwest Asia westwards into new environments. This process presented new opportunities and challenges for the region's first food-producing societies that emerged in the semiarid foothills and river valleys of northern Mesopotamia and the Levant some 2000 years earlier. Some scholars have hypothesised that increasing climatic aridity and human landscape impacts led to societal upheaval, group fission, and settlement abandonment, which motivated early farmers to migrate to the more temperate regions of Western Anatolia. Palaeoclimatic data from the Greenland ice cores indicate that the collapse of the Laurentine ice sheet at ~8200cal BP led to a rapid shift from the warm and humid Climatic Optimum, to extremely cold and arid conditions globally. In Central Anatolia, the 8.2k event has been linked to the final abandonment of large, nucleated settlements such as Çatalhöyuk East, and the beginning of dense Neolithic settlement in Western Anatolia by communities practising fully developed agropastoral economies. However, direct evidence for significant deterioration of vegetation and other landscape resources that could have caused economic decline and societal unrest, is lacking. Furthermore, there is very little data with which to reconstruct the ecological footprint of denser Neolithic settlement in Western Anatolia, and how agropastoral economies were integrated in these more humid and densely wooded environments, including interactions and/or hybridization with pre-existing local forager lifeways.This project aims to fill this knowledge gap by collecting palaeobotanical (wood charcoal) data from select Neolithic sites in Central and Western Anatolia, covering the critical timespan between the mid-7th and late-6th millennia cal BC. The key aim of this research project is to investigate the nature of vegetation changes, people-environment interactions, and anthropogenic impacts, during this period. This will be achieved by reconstructing woodland vegetation before, during, and after the 8.2k event using quantified charcoal data to address changes in woodland composition, cover, and diversity that may be linked to climatic and/or anthropogenic impacts on the local environments (e.g., changes in woodland composition/cover due to deforestation caused by browsing, grazing and/or clearance for cultivation).