Assessing Canadian history and past human life in archaeological sites using paleomicrobiology

考古数据总是不完整的，经常产生新的假设，而不是揭示无可争辩的事实。对历史遗迹中古代微生物群落多样性的研究是解决这一问题的一种方式，因为对环境敏感的微生物是与人类活动和它们周围的景观类型直接相关的。因此，拟议的研究项目综合了两个主要科学学科：古生物微生物生态学和考古学，涉及魁北克大学的一名微生物生态学家和卡利耶尔角博物馆的考古学家。这一不同寻常的合作伙伴关系的目标是使用化石微生物DNA作为考古遗址过去活动的标记。这项研究项目将受益于并专注于蒙特利尔及以前保存完好的城市土壤，填补加拿大过去历史的关键知识空白。因此，这将有利于来自蒙特利尔的加拿大人了解他们的起源，但也有助于增加新知识的传播，从而加深对文化的依恋。我们期待这一高度创新的伙伴关系将在理解过去的人类活动和景观方面产生前所未有的结果，使用现代和最先进的技术。通过这一原始方法，我们预计对古代微生物群落的分析将成为考古实践中使用的标准数据来源，支持和补充加拿大和世界各地的考古和历史数据产生的假设。通过与UQAM的Coeur des Sciences合作，我们的成果将得以广泛传播，通过一系列讲座和研讨会接触到普通公众和高中生，利用Coeur des Sciences庞大的网络和社交媒体追随者。通过该项目产生的结果将改变对考古遗址的解释方式，以支持历史知识。

Archaeological data is always incomplete, often generating new hypotheses rather than revealing indisputable facts. The study of ancient microbial community diversity in historical sites is a way to solve this issue, as environment-sensitive microbes are a directly linked to human activities and landscape types surrounding them. Thus, the proposed research project integrates two major science disciplines: paleontological microbial ecology and archaeology, involving a microbial ecologist from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and archaeologists from the Pointe-à-Callière museum. The objective of this unusual partnership is to use fossil microbial DNA as a marker for past activities in archaeological sites. This research project will benefit from and focus on highly preserved urban soils going back to the foundation of the city of Montreal and before, filling crucial knowledge gaps of Canada's past history. It will thus be beneficial for Canadians from Montreal to understand their origins, but also to increase spreading of new knowledge allowing a deeper cultural attachment. We expect this highly innovative partnership to yield unprecedented results in the understanding of past human activities and landscapes, using modern and state-of-the art techniques. Through this original approach, we expect that the analyses of ancient microbial communities will become a standard source of data used in archaeological practice, supporting and complementing hypotheses generated by archaeological and historical data in Canada and worldwide. A collaboration with the Coeur des Sciences at UQAM will allow widespread dissemination of our results, reaching out to the general public and high-school students through a series of talks and seminars, taking advantage of the vast Coeur des Sciences network and social media followers. The results generated through this project will offer a paradigm change in the way archaeological sites can be interpreted, in support to historical knowledge.