Collaborative Research: Human Behavior Within the Context of Long Term Environment Change

In the face of the unprecedented climate change of the modern era, there is a growing interest in understanding the ways in which climate change shaped, and was shaped by, prehistoric human groups. This project will undertake research on climate change, and the nature of human responses to that change, during the Last Glacial Period. The Last Glacial is characterized by profound shifts in climate, culminating in the Last Glacial Maximum during which sea levels dropped to 130 m below the modern coastline.

On a human scale, the phase witnessed significant biological, cultural and technological changes. Within the region studied, this includes the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans and the transition from Middle to Upper Paleolithic technologies and culture. The Last Glacial also encompasses much of the Epipaleolithic, a period of key importance to our understanding of the transition from foraging bands to sedentary farming societies.

There has been considerable debate about the role played by climate change in these transitions, fueled in part by a lack of high resolution, culturally linked environmental data. By combining high resolution paleoclimate and zooarchaeological data, this project will provide insight into human-environmental interactions during a key period in the later stages of human development.

The project will provide research opportunities for undergraduates at a majority-minority institution, as well as supporting graduate student training at a second university. Given the importance of deep-time perspectives to current discussions about climate change, results will be disseminated to the public via popular science articles and by public lectures.

With deposits spanning from the Middle Paleolithic through the Epipaleolithic (~71-21,000-years ago), this research examines caves that serves as an ideal natural laboratory for exploring questions relating to human-environmental interaction in the strategic region that facilitated inter-continental human and cultural exchanges. The project will combine traditional zooarchaeological analysis with the isotopic analysis of key prey species (gazelle and fallow deer) and plant waxes (n-alkanes) deriving from archaeological sediments.

The combined datasets will provide a high-resolution reconstruction of paleoclimatic conditions. The data also provide a unique opportunity to document shifts in human subsistence behavior and landscape use throughout the Last Glacial. This will facilitate the evaluation of hypotheses about behavioral differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, while also providing new insights into the nature of human responses to the Last Glacial Maximum, a particularly active and challenging period of climate 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.