Collaborative Research: Long Term Accommodation to Climate Change

自从150多年前尼安德特人被发现以来，他们一直激发着科学家和公众的想象力。自然科学和社会科学领域的研究人员在了解它们的生活方式、它们如何成功地适应上一个冰河时代的极端气候以及它们为什么最终在几千年前消失方面取得了巨大进展。考古学家和地球科学家在深时间和人类与环境的相互作用方面有着共同的兴趣，他们特别有能力为尼安德特人的研究做出贡献。在这个大背景下，研究人员将领导一项为期三年的研究，研究尼安德特人对上一个冰河时期极端气候变化的适应情况。该项目将为人类进化和尼安德特人命运的理论做出贡献，为环境变化、技术和饮食选择在人类进化中所起的作用提供信息。额外的好处包括实地和实验室培训，科学参与和文化丰富的学生参与者谁将加入跨学科的研究团队在国际环境。参与该项目的许多学生将是第一代大学生，他们来自肯塔基州和北卡罗莱纳东部代表性不足的贫困工人和农村人口群体，否则他们可能没有机会进行国际旅行。该项目旨在解决一个基本问题：尼安德特人的土地利用、人口、技术和饮食的时间变化是否代表了对上一个冰河时期极端气候变化的反应？项目团队将通过开发互补的考古、年代和古环境数据集（来自正在进行的尼安德特人考古遗址的挖掘），并将其与当地和区域气候记录相结合，来解决这个问题。先前在该遗址的工作已经确定，该洞穴保存了丰富的文化沉积物和非文化动物遗骸，包括生物分子化合物，如古代DNA。石器制品和动物骨骼组合将提供尼安德特人技术和原材料选择变化的可靠记录，这些记录可以直接与古气候记录同步，并与来自同一地层位置的相关动物遗骸的稳定同位素分析的季节性指标同步。所提出的方法使用放射性碳和铀系列定年来建立年龄控制，石器工具分析来了解旧石器时代人类的决策，动物骨骼组合来重建古环境并了解尼安德特人的饮食，以及沉积学分析来推断遗址形成过程和人类占领的环境背景。总的来说，这项工作将建立一个完整的尼安德特人遗址适应的古环境和地质考古年表，提供该地区许多其他遗址所缺少的关键背景。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Neanderthals continue to spark the imagination of scientists and the general public, as they have since their discovery over 150 years ago. Researchers from across the natural and social sciences have made great progress in understanding their life ways, how they successfully adapted to the extreme climates of the last ice age, and why they ultimately disappeared millenia ago. Archaeologists and geoscientists, with their common interests in deep time and human-environment interactions, are particularly well equipped to contribute to the study of Neanderthals. Within this broad context, researchers will lead a three-year study of Neanderthal adaptation to extreme climate variation during the last ice age. The project will contribute to theories about human evolution and the fate of Neanderthal populations, informing on the roles that environmental change, technology, and diet choice played in human evolution. Additional benefits include field and laboratory training, scientific engagement, and cultural enrichment for student participants who will join an interdisciplinary research team in an international setting. Many of the students involved in this project will be first-generation college students from under-represented, working poor, and rural demographic groups in Kentucky and eastern North Carolina who may not otherwise have opportunities for international travel. This project is designed to address the fundamental question: do temporal variations in Neanderthal land use, demography, technology, and diet represent responses to extreme climate shifts during the last ice age? The project team will address this question by developing complementary archaeological, chronological, and paleoenvironmental datasets from the ongoing excavation at a Neanderthal archaeological site) and integrating them with local and regional climate records. Previous work at the site has established that the cave preserves rich cultural deposits and non-cultural faunal remains, including biomolecular compounds such as ancient DNA. Lithic artifact and animal bone assemblages will provide a robust record of changes in Neanderthal technology and raw material selection that can be directly synchronized with paleoclimate records, and with seasonality indicators from stable isotope analyses of associated faunal remains from the same stratigraphic position. The proposed methodology uses radiocarbon and uranium-series dating to establish age control, stone tool analyses to understand the decision-making of Paleolithic humans, animal bone assemblages to reconstruct paleoenvironments and understand Neanderthal diets, and sedimentological analyses to infer site formation processes and environmental context of human occupation. Taken together, the work will establish a complete paleoenvironmental and geoarchaeological chronology for Neanderthal site adaptations, providing critical context that is missing from many other sites in the region.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.