Understanding Human Responses to Environmental Change Using a 2,500-Year Reconstruction of Paleoecologic and Socioeconomic History

这个项目调查过去的社会是如何应对气候变化的。人们普遍认为，现代社会比前工业化社会更不受气候变化影响，但事实可能并非如此。更全面地了解过去自然和人为引起的变化如何影响环境，可能指导旨在促进未来可持续性的决策。物理学家经常将过去气候的突然变化视为社会崩溃的主要原因；然而，社会科学家认为，社会政治决策有助于环境变化，我们不应该在不包括社会结构分析的情况下研究社会脆弱性。该项目将古环境重建与社会经济历史相结合，以确定与气候变率相关的社会和环境变化之间的联系。由古生态学家、地质学家、社会历史学家和考古学家组成的研究小组将调查意大利罗马附近的一个遗址，该遗址已连续使用了2300多年。该小组将分析保存在当地修道院、市政当局和梵蒂冈档案馆中的中世纪文献和财产地图，以获得关于景观变化的书面“目击记录”，帮助重建该地区的社会经济历史。此外，研究小组还将分析湖泊沉积物的物理证据，包括来自花粉的森林历史，来自古地磁和沉积物的洪水和侵蚀历史，来自硅藻的湖泊历史，来自氧同位素的温度，以及来自木炭分析的火灾历史。通过比较古环境重建中重大环境变化的时间与书面记录中社会历史的时间，研究小组将能够表明环境变化是由人类引起的，还是由气候引起的，还是由两者复杂的相互作用引起的。在气候变化似乎导致社会经济崩溃的情况下，研究小组将探索影响当地人口如何应对危机的社会政治结构的不同模型。从这项工作中获得的见解将有助于我们理解可能指导政策决策的行动，使社区在面临气候变化时更好地为维持当地环境做好准备。该项目将通过为科学、历史和社会研究的高中教师提供专业发展，为K-12教育做出贡献。这些教师将制定符合科学课程标准的跨学科课程计划，并通过内华达州数据门户网站向全国的教育工作者传播。三名研究生将获得地理学（博士）、地质科学（博士）和教育学（硕士）的高级学位。这些学生将获得国际经验，与意大利研究人员和研究生一起工作。六名本科生和一名早期职业女性研究科学家也将得到支持。该项目将通过从这些群体中招募学生，以及与拥有大量代表性不足群体的社区的高中合作，扩大代表性不足群体的参与。该项目将通过在罗马帝国中心地区创建高分辨率的环境变化记录来推进科学知识，该地区数千年来一直是西方文化进步的中心。

This project investigates how past societies responded to climate change. There is a general sense that modern societies are more insulated than pre-industrial societies from the effects of climate change, but this may not prove to be true. Developing a more complete understanding of how natural and human-caused changes affected the environment in the past can potentially guide decisions aimed at promoting future sustainability. Physical scientists often view abrupt changes in past climate as the primary cause for societal collapse; however, social scientists argue that sociopolitical decisions contribute to environmental change, and we should not study societal vulnerability without including an analysis of social structures. This project will integrate paleoenvironmental reconstruction with socioeconomic history to identify linkages between social and environmental change associated with climate variability. The research team includes paleoecologists, geologists, social historians and archeologists who will investigate a site near Rome, Italy that has been continuously utilized for over 2,300 years. The team will analyze medieval literature and property maps preserved in the archives of local monasteries, municipalities and the Vatican to obtain written "eye-witness accounts" of landscape change to help reconstruct the socioeconomic history of the region. In addition, the team will analyze physical evidence from lake sediments, including forest history from pollen, flood and erosion history from paleomagnetism and sediments, lake history from diatoms, temperature from oxygen isotopes, and fire history from charcoal analysis. By comparing the timing of significant environmental changes in the paleoenvironmental reconstruction to the timing of social history from written records the team will be able to suggest whether environmental change was caused by humans, by climate, or some complicated interaction of the two. In cases when climate change appears to have resulted in socioeconomic collapse, the research team will explore different models of socio-political structures that influenced how the local population was able to respond to the crisis.Insights from this work will contribute to our understanding of actions that may guide policy decisions that better prepare communities for sustaining their local environment when faced with climatic change. The project will contribute to K-12 education by providing professional development to high school teachers of science, history and social studies. These teachers will create cross-disciplinary lesson plans that meet science curriculum standards and be disseminated to educators throughout the country using the Nevada Data Portal. Three graduate students will be supported while they earn advanced degrees in Geography (PhD), Geological Sciences (PhD) and Education (MA). These students will gain international experience, working with Italian researchers and graduate students. Six undergraduate students will also be supported as well as one early career female research scientist. This project will broaden the participation of underrepresented groups by both recruiting students from these groups, as well as working with high schools in communities with large populations of underrepresented groups. This project will advance scientific knowledge by creating a high resolution record of environmental change in the heart of the Roman Empire, a region that has been central to advances in western culture for thousands of years.