Long Term Agrarian Responses to Environmental Stress

该项目涉及与农业社会的发展有关的基本社会和环境问题，以及它们所产生的和现代社会继续生活的社会和自然景观。以考古学家、地理学家和地球科学家之间的合作为特色的跨学科研究特别适合于应用深度的时间视角来阐明长期的环境变化，并评估过去的社会如何应对环境压力，从而对现代社会产生影响。特别是，阐明过去环境变化的可能轨迹和潜在影响，对于理解城市文明如何以及为什么崛起和崩溃具有重大意义。因此，这项研究阐明了过去和现在的农业社会与其生态环境之间往往不稳定的关系。该项目的主要研究人员包括九名早期职业学者，其中四名是女性，包括两名西班牙裔。面向美国和其他地区的大众和大学受众的项目推广将培养一种文化管理感，对深厚的人类遗产的欣赏，以及对过去农业社会对环境变化的不同反应的认识。项目数据将被纳入加州大学数字图书馆(CDL)的Merritt储存库，在那里它将由Open Context管理，并可供广大受众调查环境变化和农业反应的相互作用。该项目将为研究古代社会变迁提供一种新的比较方法，同时为学生提供参与科学研究的机会。这项研究将有助于越来越多地讨论处于过去社会变化核心的环境动力学，并及时与人类对现代世界环境变化的反应相关联。研究人员将阐明数千年来环境变化的轨迹，以及在显著的社会动荡时期人类反应的不同路径。对考古作物种子、动物骨骼和牙齿的稳定同位素的协调分析将被用来估计古代的降雨量和随着时间的推移的温度。不断变化的种植作物和畜群动物的概况将描绘出人类对环境变化的变化反应。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 project addresses basic social and environmental questions regarding the development of agrarian societies, and the social and physical landscapes they engendered and in which modern societies continue to live. Interdisciplinary studies featuring collaboration between archaeologists, geographers and earth scientists are particularly well-suited to apply deep time perspectives to elucidate long-term environmental changes, and assess how past societies responded to environmental stress, with attendant implications for modern societies. In particular, illumination of the possible trajectories and potential impacts of past environmental change holds major implications for understanding how and why urban civilizations rose and collapsed. Accordingly, this research illuminates the often-precarious relationships between agrarian societies, both past and modern, and their ecological settings. The project’s principal researchers include nine early career scholars, four of whom are women, including two of Hispanic descent. Project outreach to popular and university audiences in the US and beyond will foster a sense of cultural stewardship, an appreciation of deep human heritage, and an awareness of the varied responses to environmental change implemented by past agrarian societies. Project data will be accessioned into the University of California’s Digital Library (CDL) Merritt repository, where it will be managed by Open Context, and available for broad audiences to investigate the interactions of environmental change and agrarian responses. This project will contribute a new comparative approach for the study of ancient social flux while offering opportunities for student engagement in scientific research.This research will contribute to the growing discussion of environmental dynamics at the heart of past social change with timely pertinence for human responses to environmental change in the modern world. The researchers will elucidate multi-millenial trajectories of environmental change and varied paths of human response during a period of pronounced societal upheaval. Coordinated analyses of stable isotopes from archaeological crop seeds, and animal bones and teeth will be used to estimate ancient rainfall and temperatures through time. Changing profiles of cultivated crops and herded animals will portray shifting human responses to environmental change.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.