Collaborative Research: Paleoclimatic and Palenvironmental Characterization of Early Pleistocene Sites

这项研究将调查气候和环境变化对早期人类祖先迁出非洲的影响，以及他们对180万年前新环境的适应。以前关于气候-人类关系的研究主要集中在早期人类对炎热、干旱和开阔的稀树草原生境的独特形态和行为适应，并将早期人类的扩散与欧亚大陆稀树草原的发展联系在一起。然而，关于稀树草原走廊在广泛的千年时间尺度和/或在全球大陆空间尺度上扩展的证据并不明确，必须考虑到在较窄的时间尺度和局部空间尺度上运行的不同气候过程可能在这一重大和基础性事件中发挥了关键作用。来自考古学和地球科学的新的、最先进的、互补的和跨学科的方法处于有利地位，通过专注于季节性和其他高分辨率的时空气候和环境模式作为早期人类传播的一些驱动力，从而开辟新的天地。来自美国、以色列、乔治亚共和国和澳大利亚的考古学家、地球化学家、古生物学家和地质学家的合作将探索早期人类在黎凡特面临的不熟悉的季节性、气候和环境模式。对过去生物人类适应的类型、范围和程度的了解有望阐明现代人在不同气候制度下的分布和能力问题。这项研究将提供一个平台，促进关于气候、环境和人类反应之间始终相互作用的专业和公众讨论，加强多个学术水平的科学教育，并通过旨在培养学术、研究和公共生活领袖的指导，支持从代表性不足的群体中招收本科生。研究小组将获得关于以色列和乔治亚共和国两个考古遗址当地气候和环境的新数据，这些遗址可以追溯到200万到120万年前，这是人类离开非洲的一些最早的遗址。结合新的测年方法、考古发掘、跨形态、组织学和化学光谱的化石分析，将能够对气候、环境和人类种群动态之间的联系进行严格的评估。此外，该团队将产生新的古气候学和古生态研究的比较方法，用于开发一个全面的数据库，并将公开提供。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research will investigate the impact of climate and environmental change on the migration of early human ancestors out of Africa and their adaptation to novel environments 1.8 million years ago. Previous scholarship on climate-human relationship focused on unique morphological and behavioral adaptations of early humans to hot, arid and open savanna habitats, and causally linked the dispersal of early humans with the development of savanna grasslands in Eurasia. However, evidence for an expansion of a savanna corridor at broad millennial temporal scales and/or at a global continental spatial scale is ambiguous and necessitates consideration that disparate climatic processes operating on narrower temporal scales and local spatial scales may have played a critical role in this cardinal and foundational event. Novel, state-of-the-art, complementary and interdisciplinary methods derived from archaeology and geosciences are well-placed to break new ground by focusing on seasonality and other high-resolution spatial and temporal climatic and environmental patterns as some of the driving forces for dispersal of early Homo. This collaboration of archaeologists, geochemists, paleontologists, and geologists from the United States, Israel, Republic of Georgia, and Australia will explore the unfamiliar pattern of seasonality, climate and environment which early humans faced in the Levant. Knowledge of the type, extent and degree of past biological human adaptation holds promise for illuminating issues on the distributions and capacities of modern humans in varying climatic regimes. The research will provide a platform for fostering professional and public discourse on the interactions throughout time among climate, environment, and human responses, enhancing science education across multiple academic levels, and supporting the recruitment of undergraduate students from underrepresented groups through mentoring aimed to create leaders in scholarship, research and public life. The research team will derive new data on the local climate and environment of two archaeological sites in Israel and the Republic of Georgia dating from 2 - 1.2 million years ago, which are the some of the earliest sites of humans out of Africa. Combining new dating methods, archaeological excavations, fossil analyses across the spectra of morphology, histology and chemistry will permit rigorous evaluation of the links between climate, environment and hominin population dynamics. Furthermore, the team will generate new comparative methods for the study of paleoclimatology and paleoecology, which will be used for developing a comprehensive database that will be made publicly available.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.