H2020Индивидуална стипендия2018–2020

AHEAD · A Human and Environmental history of the Atacama Desert: understanding ecological and archaeological interactions in arid areas of South America

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2018-09-01 → 2020-08-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 195 455 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF-EF-CAR

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Взаимоотношенията между хората и пустините в Южна Америка се анализират чрез остатъци от дървени въглища в археологически обекти. Това помага да се разбере как промените в земеделието и напояването са повлияли на избора на гориво за огрев.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

A Human and Environmental history of the Atacama Desert: understanding ecological and archaeological interactions in arid areas of South America

AHEAD was designed to analyse the interactions between human societies and South American hyperarid environments through the study of charcoal and wood remains from archaeological sites and natural deposits. The choice of desert areas is related to the very good preservation of vegetal remains both in archaeological sites and in natural locations and to the low diversity of the vegetation that permit to observe clearly the evolution of the environment and of the human practices. This project encompasses a period between the end of Pleistocene and Late Holocene in different locations of South American desert in Chile (Atacama Desert), Peru (coastal desert) and Argentina (altitude desert). It includes different societies: nomads, (hunter-gatherers), and sedentary (Formative societies and modern occupations). The results obtained with AHEAD permitted to compare the fuelwood economy in different societies and region in desert areas and to observe the evolution of the vegetation and the presence of water (by using isotopic analyses of carbon). The results obtained here show that the vegetation used as fuelwood is mostly local and available at short distance. For the hunter-gatherer’s period, all the species are native but for the more recent period, introduced species, locally presented and sometimes cultivated are also used. The evolution in water availability, registered with isotopic analyses of carbon, shows that it as a low impact on the choice of species used as fuel and that the evolution in practices such as irrigation and agriculture have a more important impact.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Fuel availability can constrain human occupation of desert environments – fuel availability is as important as water, food and building materials. The aim of AHEAD is to reveal the use of fuelwood resources in negotiating human survival in three contrasting desert areas in South America over the long-term; from foraging subsistence societies to colonial mining exploitation. The three study sites cover a range of altitudinal zones, allowing comparison between inland (hyperarid) vs coast (arid) deserts. The project’s core discipline is anthracology (charcoal identification to source species) contextualised by a regional review of available palaeoenvironmental data. Insights on fuel use history will be supported by biomolecular analysis to distinguish the functions of hearths (i.e. domestic cooking or metal working) and isotope analysis to provide data on changes in water availability in the past. The ambitious project is highly feasible due to the fellow's extensive experience in wood identification in South America, and personal reference collection of wood and charcoal from Argentinian and Chilean deserts. Moreover, all archaeological samples are available and from securely dated contexts; the fieldwork is solely for the collection of fresh wood for comparison and surface samples of subfossil wood - i.e. the project is low risk and highly cost-effective. AHEAD will benefit from York's expertise in isotope and of the collaboration with LandCover 6K network, including cutting-edge research on integrating long-term and spatially diverse palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data. In addition to being exposed to the global LandCover 6K project, the applicant will learn spatial extrapolation technique to move perspectives of human-resource use interactions from the site to the landscape scale. This project directly feeds into current global research initiatives that are employing long-term land use and landcover data to refine and test predictive climate models.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

UNIVERSITY OF YORK · YORK NORTH YORKSHIREКоординаторОбединеното кралство