Collaborative Research: Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia and Mid-Holocene Environmental Changes

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Joy McCorriston博士（俄亥俄州立大学）、Eric Oches博士（南佛罗里达大学）及其同事和学生将在也门南部的Hadramawt地区进行三个季节的实地研究，以调查全新世中期（约5000年前）季风减少和随之而来的干旱化对环境和文化的影响。阿拉伯半岛南部全新世中期气候模式的变化迫使处于发展农业自给经济早期阶段的人们调整耕作技术、水管理实践和放牧策略，以适应日益干旱的景观。具体研究目标包括：(1)重建早全新世至中全新世雨季阿拉伯南部高地的人类经济行为；(2)通过比较不同高原地区（Wadi Sana和Wadi Idim）的序列，为高分辨率考古和古生态记录提供更广泛的区域背景；(3)建立与中全新世降水气候变化相关的考古和沉积环境变化记录的高分辨率年代学。这个跨学科团队由考古学家（McCorriston）、地质学家（Oches）和也门人种学家(Bin。Aqil)将在沉积和植被、水文和气候的化石记录的背景下重建人类行为的考古记录。考古发掘将集中在岩石庇护所、坑屋住所和水管理结构上，这些建筑在之前的田野调查中已经被确定，并通过放射性碳和人工制品类型学确定了大约9000 - 5000年（日历）前。该团队将通过考古调查和挖掘、民族考古、人工制品分析、古植被研究、沉积学分析和古水文重建等方面进行研究和培养跨学科学生。将努力使也门研究人员和学生参与实地研究，以便提供考古和地质训练。研究结果将用于开发概念和地理信息系统（GIS）模型，以解释阿拉伯南部中全新世古环境变化中农业采用的文化和环境因素，并有助于了解一个鲜为人知的地区的古环境知识。也门南部的研究区域保存完好，几乎被废弃的景观曾经受到全新世早期人类和环境过程的影响，为解决阿拉伯在早期农业传播中的作用及其过去气候和环境变化的记录提供了无与伦比的背景。

With the support of the National Science Foundation, Dr Joy McCorriston (The Ohio State University), Dr. Eric Oches (University of South Florida), and their colleagues and students will conduct three seasons of field research in the Hadramawt region of southern Yemen in order to investigate environmental and cultural impacts of the middle-Holocene (ca. 5,000 years ago) monsoon decline and accompanying aridification. Changing middle-Holocene climatic patterns in southern Arabia forced people in the early stages of developing agricultural subsistence economies to adapt their cultivation technologies, water management practices, and herding strategies to an increasingly arid landscape. Specific research objectives include: (1) reconstruct human economic behaviors in the southern Arabian uplands during the wetter early- to middle-Holocene, (2) provide wider regional context for high-resolution archaeological and palaeoecological records by comparing sequences from different highland areas (Wadi Sana and Wadi Idim), and (3) develop high-resolution chronology for the archaeological and sedimentary record of environmental changes associated with the middle-Holocene climatological shift in precipitation. The interdisciplinary team headed by an archaeologist (McCorriston), geologist (Oches), and Yemeni ethnographer (Bin .Aqil) will reconstruct the archaeological record of human behavior in the context of sedimentary and fossil records of vegetation, hydrology, and climate. Archaeological excavations will focus on rock-shelters, pit-house dwellings, and water management structures that have been identified in previous fieldwork and are dated by radiocarbon and artifact typology between ca. 9,000 - 5,000 (calendar) years ago. The team will conduct research and train interdisciplinary students through archaeological survey and excavation, ethnoarchaeology, artifact analysis, paleovegetation studies, sedimentological analysis, and paleohydrological reconstruction. Efforts will be made to include Yemeni researchers and students in field studies in order to provide archaeological and geological training. Results of the study will be used to develop conceptual and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) models to explain the cultural and environmental factors involved in the adoption of agriculture in the changing middle-Holocene paleoenvironments of southern Arabia and to contribute toward paleoenvironmental knowledge of a little-known region. The research areas in southern Yemen, with their good preservation of all-but abandoned landscapes once shaped by early Holocene human and environmental processes, provide an unparalleled context to resolve Arabia's role in the spread of early agriculture and its record of past climate and environmental changes.