Evaluating Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Prehistoric Resource Degradation

国家科学基金会的这一项目汇集了克里斯托弗·M·史蒂文森博士领导的一批高素质的国际调查人员，对智利的拉帕努伊(复活节岛)进行考古研究。来自新西兰拉帕努伊和美国的团队成员将专注于气候变化、环境退化和巨大的生存变化，以制定一项实证评估，以评估这些因素可能或可能没有影响复活节岛上欧洲接触前的社会崩溃。该岛是记录这些过程的动态性质的理想研究区域。这是一个相对较小的与世隔绝的岛屿，环境变量(如降雨量、海拔、温度、物理侵蚀程度、火山基底的年龄和土壤养分)在空间和时间上变化很大。由于现代人口密度低，考古景观保存得很好。欧洲接触前的短暂占领时期(公元1100-1722年)，以及相对较低的岛间接触水平，有助于理解为什么社会可能会随着时间的推移而变化。这项古生态、景观和考古调查计划将制定一条高度清晰的文化时间表。该小组将使用地貌学和地球化学来评估拉帕努伊土壤的历史，并确定侵蚀和可持续农业的影响。将通过对环境背景、遥感卫星数据和精确地理位置的分析，解决各类花园的形态和功能变化。我们将使用黑铁矿的水合测年结合放射性碳测年来确定农业活动的年龄。使用一系列的地理信息系统和生态动力学模型对这些数据进行分析，以实现对拉帕努伊陆地资源如何、何时以及为什么随着时间发生变化以及这可能对史前社会变化产生的影响的有力和全面的理解。研究重点是拉帕努伊，但所解决的问题是全球性的。拉帕努伊经常被描述为全球环境退化的典范。农业活动与森林砍伐、物质侵蚀和社会崩溃之间的联系相对简单。利用具有创新理论和方法的跨学科团队，科学家可以促进对拉帕努伊变化的了解，以及这个与世隔绝的小岛是否适合作为世界的典范。这项研究涉及经验性地测量有限数量的变量，以促进对岛屿生态的复杂建模。这一努力将确定陆地资源的变化是否是欧洲接触前社会崩溃的关键因素。拉帕努伊的背景提供了与大陆、大群岛和太平洋小岛屿环境的极好对比，填补了在理解社会和自然过程之间的联系和关系方面的关键空白。这项研究将有助于过去人类活动动态建模的发展。这些发现将使社会科学家能够理解人类在当地岛屿层面和更广泛的全球范围内的影响。

This project National Science Foundation brings together a highly qualified group of international investigators led by Dr. Christopher M. Stevenson to conduct archaeological research on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile. Team members from Rapa Nui New Zealand and the United States will focus on climate change, environmental degradation, and dramatic subsistence changes to develop an empirical assessment of how these may, or may not have, influenced pre-European contact societal collapse on Easter Island. The island is an ideal study area for documenting the dynamic nature of these processes. It is a relatively small isolated island where environmental variables (e.g., rainfall, elevation, temperature, levels of physical erosion, age of volcanic substrates, and soil nutrients) vary significantly over space and time. The archaeological landscape is very well preserved due to low modern population densities. The short period of pre-European contact occupation (ca. AD 1100-1722), and relatively low levels of inter-island contact, facilitate an understanding of why society might have changed with time. This program of paleo-ecological, landscape and archaeological investigations will develop a highly resolved cultural time-line. The team will use geomorphology and geochemistry to assess the history of Rapa Nui soils and determine the impacts of erosion and sustained agriculture. The morphological and functional variation of various classes of gardens will be addressed through an analysis of environmental setting, remotely sensed satellite data, and precise geographical locations. We will Obsidian hydration dating in conjunction with radiocarbon dating will be used to determine the age of agricultural activities. Using a series of GIS and ecodynamic models these data will be analyzed to achieve a robust and comprehensive understanding of how, when and why Rapa Nui terrestrial resources changed through time and the impact that this might have had on prehistoric societal change.The research focuses on Rapa Nui, yet the issues addressed are global. Rapa Nui is often depicted as a model for global environmental degradation. Relatively simplistic linkages have been made between agricultural activities and processes of deforestation, physical erosion, and societal collapse. Utilizing an interdisciplinary team with innovative theoretical and methodological approaches allows scientists to advance understanding of change on Rapa Nui and the suitability of this isolated small island as a model of the world. The research involves empirically measuring a limited number of variables to facilitate complex modeling of the island ecology. This effort will establish whether changes in terrestrial resources were a critical factor in a pre-European contact societal collapse. The Rapa Nui context provides an excellent comparison to continental, large archipelago, and small Pacific island settings and fills a critical gap in understanding the linkages and relationships between social and natural processes. The research will contribute to the development of the dynamic modeling of past human activity. These findings will enable social scientists to understand the impact of people both on the local island level and the wider global scale.