Dissertation Research: An Investigation of the Role of Mid-Holocene Climate Change in the Neolithic Transition on Zealand (Denmark)

最近在苏格兰西部的研究(Bonsall等人，2002年)表明，大约在公元前4000年，向持续温暖和干燥条件的突然转变，可能引发了从中欧到大西洋外围(包括南斯堪的纳维亚半岛和大不列颠)农业的戏剧性扩张。假定的气候变化并不是微妙的，将对陆地生态系统和可能的水生生态系统产生立即和持续的影响。这种节俭的情景与关于农民扩散的更复杂的社会假说形成了强烈对比，这些假说引发了贸易、交换、社会竞争和不同的人口增长，或者这些因素的组合。然而，整个这一广阔地区的气候反应可能并不像这些研究人员所说的那样一致。事实上，对于这一时期的气候变化类型(S)，人们几乎没有达成共识。这在很大程度上是因为缺乏高分辨率的古生态研究，这些研究集中在新石器时代初期被考古记录得最好的地区，如丹麦西兰岛的Amose地区。Anthony Ruter与威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校人类学系的T.Douglas Price博士和哥本哈根大学地质研究所的Noe-Nygaard博士合作，开始了一项详细的古生态研究，并得到了高分辨率14C年表的支持，以调查Tisso-Lille Amose地区是否满足这一气候变化假说的条件。这种对花粉、孢子、微木炭和藻类的近距离研究，结合碳、氮同位素、硫和磁化率的记录，将使我们能够直接测试新石器时代的定居点是否受到Bonsall等人所描述的那种气候变化的影响。农业社会的发展改变了这个星球的生态，并为我们生活的复杂的工业社会提供了先决条件。然而，是什么迫使我们的祖先采用这种激进的新经济，这个问题仍然没有得到回答。随着我们利用其他自然和历史科学来帮助解释人口在其社会和生物背景下的进化，将在这一问题的实证研究方面取得进展，采用重建方法，而不是先验的假定原因(环境或社会)。这将越来越需要跨学科的接触，使不熟悉考古学家的研究问题的科学家的观点和技术参与进来，但又能够调查这些现象。这里提出的研究将启动这一努力所需的那种跨学科和国际合作伙伴关系，将学科和国家联系起来。Noe-Nygaard博士是Amose古生态和第四纪地质学方面的专家，在她职业生涯的大部分时间里都参与了考古项目。它将在哥本哈根和威斯康星-麦迪逊的教职员工的协助下执行，并应出版几份联合出版物。希望这将促进这些机构和学科在这些和其他研究问题上的进一步合作。实际上，这应该包括将这项研究延伸到全新世晚期，以衡量贯穿整个历史时期的景观修改的类型和强度。

Recent research in western Scotland (Bonsall et al 2002) suggests that an abrupt shift to sustained warmer and dryer conditions, at about 4000 BC, may have triggered a dramatic expansion of farming from central Europe into the Atlantic periphery (including southern Scandinavia and Great Britain). The postulated climatic changes were not subtle and would have had an immediate and sustained effect on both terrestrial and possibly aquatic ecosystems. This parsimonious scenario, contrasts strongly with more complex social hypotheses for the spread of farmers, which invoke trade, exchange, social competition and differential population growth or a combination of these factors.However, climatic response across this vast region may have been less uniform than these researchers suggest. There is in fact, little consensus on the kind(s) of climatic change that characterized the period in question. This is largely due to the lack of high-resolution paleoecological studies focused on the Atlantic-Subboreal transition in regions where the initial Neolithic is best documented archaeologically, like the Amose region on the Danish island of Zealand.Anthony Ruter, with the collaboration of Dr. T. Douglas Price at the department of anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dr. Noe-Nygaard at the University of Copenhagen's Geological Institute, has begun a detailed paleoecological study supported by a high-resolution 14C chronology to investigate whether the conditions of this climate change hypothesis are met in the Tisso-Lille Amose region. This close interval study of pollen, spores, micro-charcoal and algae combined with a record of carbon and nitrogen isotopes, sulfur and magnetic susceptibility will allow us to directly test whether the Neolithic settlement was conditioned by the kind of climate change Bonsall et al describe. The development of agricultural societies transformed the ecology of this planet and preconditioned the complex industrial societies in which we live. Yet, the question of what compelled our ancestors to adopt this radical new economy has still not been answered. Progress in the empirical study of this issue will be made as we engage other natural and historical sciences to help explain the evolution of populations in their social and biotic context, employing reconstructive methods which, privilege no postulated cause (environmental or social) a priori. This will increasingly require reaching across disciplines to engage the perspectives and techniques of scientists unfamiliarly with the research problems of archaeologists; yet able to investigate these phenomena. The research proposed here will initiate exactly the kind of interdisciplinary and international partnership needed for this endeavor, bridging both disciplines and nations. Dr. Noe-Nygaard is an expert on the paleoecology and quaternary geology of the Amose and has collaborated in archaeological projects for most of her career. It will be executed with the assistance of faculty and staff in both Copenhagen and Wisconsin-Madison, and should produce several joint publications. Hopefully, it will stimulate further collaboration between these institutions and disciplines on these and other research questions. Practically, this should include extending this study into the late-Holocene to gauge the type and intensity of landscape modification through to the historic period.