International Research Fellowship Program: Eco-Cultural Niche Modeling of Human and Ungulate Populations in Europe during Oxygen Isotope Stages 3 and 2\(60-10K BP\)

[653,000]银行国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9至24个月的研究。该计划的奖励为联合研究提供了机会，并利用独特或互补的设施、专业知识和国外的实验条件。该奖项将支持William E. Banks博士与Francesco d'Errico博士在法国波尔多大学开展为期12个月的研究。该项目将评估欧洲氧同位素阶段（OIS） 3-2（约60-10k BP）期间快速尺度气候变化（Dansgaard-Oeschger事件）对大型哺乳动物和人类种群的影响。这些气候波动对动物和人类种群产生了深远的影响，但人们对狩猎采集者对这种变化的反应知之甚少。PI将用规则集预测遗传算法（GARP）检查它们对这些气候事件的反应。GARP是一种机器学习遗传算法，它为一个物种创建一个生态位模型，代表该物种可以保持种群停滞状态的环境条件。他将利用考古、地理和古气候数据来建立特定时期的生态文化生态位模型。初步分析已经证明了这种方法在模拟末次盛冰期人类种群的生态文化生态位方面的实用性。这种方法有能力确定史前地理的环境和文化限制，以及文化变异性如何在考古记录中表达出来。他假设人类群体的生态位随着快速规模的气候变化而扩大和缩小。他的生态文化生态位建模方法将允许他检验这一假设，并量化和解释这种适应性变化。

0653000BanksThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twelve-month research fellowship by Dr. William E. Banks to work with Dr. Francesco d'Errico at the University of Bordeaux in France.This project will evaluate the impact of rapid-scale climatic changes (Dansgaard-Oeschger events) on large mammal and human populations during Oxygen Isotope Stages (OIS) 3-2 (ca. 60-10k BP) in Europe. These climatic oscillations had profound impacts on animal and human populations, but hunter-gatherer responses to such changes are poorly understood. The PI will examine their responses to these climatic events with the Genetic Algorithm for Rule-Set Prediction (GARP). GARP is a machine-learning genetic algorithm that creates an ecological niche model for a species representing the environmental conditions in which that species could maintain a population in stasis. He will employ archaeological, geographic, and paleoclimatic data to produce eco-cultural niche models for specific time periods. Preliminary analyses have demonstrated the utility of this approach in modeling eco-cultural niches for human populations of the Last Glacial Maximum. This approach has the capacity to identify the environmental and cultural constraints on prehistoric geography and how cultural variability is expressed in the archaeological record. He hypothesizes that the ecological niches of human groups expanded and contracted in concert with rapid-scale climatic changes. His Eco-Cultural Niche Modeling approach will allow him to test this hypothesis and quantify and interpret such adaptive variability.