AN EXAMINATION OF HUMAN THERMAL ENVIRONMENTS IN THE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

对人类对热应激的生理反应的研究突出了我们科普寒冷的能力的局限性。作为恒温动物，人类可以诱导某些生物防御机制来应对寒冷暴露，但我们缺乏体毛，这对有效的体温调节提出了重大挑战。人类热环境的起源开始在文献中讨论，越来越多的人认识到高纬度地区的人类物种需要技术适应，如火，住所和衣服。计算分析比较旧石器时代晚期的气候重建和遗址分布表明，这一时期的社区经常在需要额外热保护的地区运作，加强了这些适应的必要性。虽然有机物质的腐烂阻止了对早期人类物种的推测性研究，但我们在旧石器时代晚期的整个欧洲看到了现代人类使用这些技术适应的一系列考古证据。这些证据包括通过壁炉结构的遗迹，壁炉周围的柱洞和坑形式的庇护所或令人印象深刻的猛犸骨骼结构的遗迹，以及通过针的外观，纺织品的印记和坟墓中的珠子放置的衣服。虽然其中一些例子已经进行了艺术或物理重建，但相对而言，很少有科学研究表明它们如何为人类居民提供热保护。此外，对旧石器时代晚期欧洲的更传统的研究往往集中在西欧的遗址上，尽管东欧和中欧在这一时期有一些最好的独立结构的例子（与整个西欧看到的洞穴结构相反）。因此，这个博士学位的目的是使用民族志，计算和实验方法的组合，以探索如何在东欧和中欧旧石器时代晚期的人可能已经改变了他们的直接环境，以科普热应力。

Research on human physiological responses to thermal stress highlights limitations in our ability to cope with the cold. As endotherms, humans can induce certain biological defensive mechanisms in reaction to cold exposure, but our lack of body hair presents significant challenges for effective thermoregulation. The origins of human thermal environments are beginning to be discussed in the literature, with growing appreciation that hominin species in high latitudes needed technological adaptations such as fire, shelter and clothing. Computational analysis comparing climatic reconstructions and site distributions from the Upper Palaeolithic demonstrates that communities from this period regularly operated in areas that required additional thermal protection, reinforcing the necessity of these adaptations. Whilst the decay of organic matter has prevented more than speculative research for earlier species of humans, we see a range of archaeological evidence for modern humans' use of these technological adaptations throughout Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic. These include evidence of fire through the remains of hearth structures, shelter in the form of postholes and pits surrounding hearths or the remains of impressive mammoth bone constructions, and clothing through the appearance of needles, imprints of textiles, and bead placements in graves. Whilst some of these examples have been subjected to artistic or physical reconstruction, there is relatively little scientific study of how they functioned as thermal protection for their human inhabitants. Moreover, more traditional examinations of Upper Palaeolithic Europe have tended to focus on Western European sites, despite Eastern and Central Europe having some of the best examples of free-standing structures during this period (in opposition to the cave structures seen throughout Western Europe). This PhD therefore aims to use a combination of ethnographic, computational and experimental methods to explore how Upper Palaeolithic people in Eastern and Central Europe may have altered their immediate environments to cope with thermal stress.