BE/CNH: Long-Term Coupled Socioecological Change in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico

每一代人都在改变一个继承下来的社会和环境世界，并将其作为遗产留给后代。 社会和生态进程之间的长期相互作用在多个时间和空间尺度上产生了复杂的动态变化-变化周期之后是相对停滞，然后是新的变化周期。 在这些周期中，存在着可以理解的模式和不可减少的不确定性。 稳定和转型都不能作为常态。 虽然可以确定这些周期，但仍然不确定是什么促进了稳定或有助于长期的转型。 哪些漏洞是可以容忍的，哪些漏洞会使系统发生转型，以及转型的规模如何？ 弹性理论家建立了一个社会和生态脆弱性，稳定性和转型的基础上对当代社会生态系统的研究的理解。 这个跨学科的研究项目将通过应用考古学和生态学分析以及正式的动态建模来研究其中的一些理解。 该项目将由考古学家、数学建模者、生态学家和环境科学家合作进行。 考古学与社会生命周期中的变化周期相协调-加强社会间的互动，经济集约化和大规模的人为环境变化。 因此，它将对稳定和变革的科学观察扩展到所有社会记忆之外。在美国西南部和墨西哥北方的考古记录的案例研究提供了长期的人类与环境的相互作用的调查信息。 该项目将（1）汇编多达四个考古案例的文件，（2）研究它们的泛区域联系，（3）采用数学建模和随后的考古和生态分析来抽象文化稳定时期以及快速和长期转变的关键变量和过程。 实证研究为模型提供了实质性的背景，而模型将促进对概括的洞察，然后在实证背景下进行检查。 这个迭代过程预计将导致无法从任何单一的方法，也不能从现有的社会或生态变化的研究短的时间跨度得出的见解。这个项目将影响理论的完善和社会生态变化过程的理解。 首先，专门研究美国西南部和墨西哥北方的考古学家的密切合作将有助于对人类历史上重要事件背后的社会和环境相互作用的理解达到新的水平。 第二，透过考古学的深层时间观点，本项目将检视弹性理论应用于耦合社会生态系统的效用，展示考古学对生态理论的价值，并透过概念与理论的提炼，进一步科学地了解当前的社会生态问题。 第三，本项目将确定受文化和环境背景、应对不确定性的战略以及长期遗产的各种限制条件制约的转型和稳定的动态。 预计该项目将提高对人类应对不确定性和变化的一些战略的认识，并提高对人类行动如何留下复原力或退化遗产的认识。 此外，该项目将使学生沉浸在一个跨学科的研究社区，这将激发专业技能的发展，并鼓励他们交流有关耦合人类和环境系统的知识。 美国学生和研究人员的参与，墨西哥、法国和韧性联盟中的许多国家将促进全球视角和国际合作。 该项目得到了2005财政年度环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的支持，该竞赛侧重于自然和人类系统耦合的动力学。

Each generation transforms an inherited social and environmental world and leaves it as a legacy to succeeding generations. Long-term interactions among social and ecological processes give rise to complex dynamics on multiple temporal and spatial scales -- cycles of change followed by relative stasis and then a new cycle of change. Within the cycles are understandable patterns and irreducible uncertainties. Neither stability nor transformation can be taken as the norm. Although these cycles can be identified, it remains uncertain what fosters stability or contributes to transformation over long cycles. What vulnerabilities can be tolerated, and which tip a system into transformation and at what scale? Resilience theorists have built an understanding of social and ecological vulnerabilities, stability, and transformation based on studies of contemporary socioecological systems. This interdisciplinary research project will examine some of these understandings by applying archaeological and ecological analyses and formal dynamical modeling. The project will be undertaken by a collaboration of archaeologists, mathematical modelers, ecologists, and environmental scientists. Archaeology is attuned to cycles of change over the lifespan of a society -- heightened inter-societal interaction, economic intensification, and large-scale anthropogenic environmental change . It therefore extends scientific observation of stability and transformation beyond all social memory. Archaeologically documented case studies in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico provide the information for investigating long-term human-environmental interactions. The project will (1) compile documentation on up to four archaeological cases, (2) examine their pan-regional connections, and (3) employ mathematical modeling and subsequent archaeological and ecological analysis to abstract the key variables and processes underlying periods of cultural stability and both rapid and protracted transformations. The empirical investigations provide substantive contexts for the models, while the models will foster insight into generalizations that are then examined in empirical contexts. This iterative process is expected to lead to insights that could not be derived from any single approach, nor can they be derived from the short time span available in contemporary study of social or ecological change.This project will influence the refinement of theory and understanding of processes of socioecological change. First, an intensive collaboration of archaeologists specializing in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico will contribute a new level of understanding of the social and environmental interactions underlying important episodes in human history. Second, through archaeology's deep time perspective, this project will examine the utility of resilience theory as applied to coupled socioecological systems, demonstrate the value of archaeology to ecological theory, and further scientific understanding of current socioecological problems through refinement of concepts and theory. Third, this project will identify the dynamics of transformation and stability as conditioned by cultural and environmental contexts, strategies for coping with uncertainty, and varying constraints of long-term legacies. This project is expected to promote awareness of some of the human strategies for dealing with uncertainty and change as well as awareness of how human actions leave legacies of resilience or degradation. In addition, this project will immerse students in an interdisciplinary research community that will spark development of professional skills and encourage them to exchange knowledge about coupled human and environmental systems. The involvement of students and researchers from the U.S., Mexico, France, and the many nations represented in the Resilience Alliance will foster global perspectives and international collaborations. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2005 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.