Projektbeschreibung
Wie die Interaktion zwischen Menschen und Pflanzen den Weg für die Landwirtschaft ebnete
Wir wissen noch nicht genau, wie die vom Jagen und Sammeln lebenden Menschen zur Bewirtschaftung von Pflanzen gekommen sind. Im Rahmen des vom Europäischen Forschungsrat unterstützten Projekts PalaeOrigins wird anhand von Pflanzenresten, die an archäologischen Stätten gefunden wurden, untersucht, wie vom Jagen und Sammeln lebende Menschen im Epipaläolithikum (vor 23 000 bis 11 600 Jahren) mit ihrem Land und ihren pflanzlichen Ressourcen umgingen. Außerdem wird untersucht, ob das Klima oder die kulturelle Dynamik zur Produktion von pflanzlichen Nahrungsmitteln geführt hat. Das Projekt wird einen ganzheitlichen und hochauflösenden Ansatz zur Untersuchung der pflanzlichen Lebensgrundlage einführen.
Ziel
The transition from foraging to farming represents one of the most transcendental shifts in the history of humanity. Decades of research in southwest Asia have shown that this process culminated with the development of Neolithic agricultural systems c. 10 ka cal. BP. Yet, how it started, that is, how hunter-gatherers became, for the first time, engaged with the management of plants, continues to be largely undetermined. Palaeorigins aims to fill this major gap of knowledge. Benefiting from the exceptional Epipalaeolithic archaeobotanical materials that are now available (c. 23-11 ka cal. BP), it will ask: To what extent were Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherers managing the land and the plant resources around them? Did climatic factors trigger plant resource intensification, or were cultural dynamics, like the need for specific foodstuffs, that first motivated plant-food production? To achieve such an ambitious aim PalaeOrigins will pioneer a holistic and high-resolution approach to study the plant-based subsistence. It will use a unique combination of traditional and most novel archaeobotanical materials, state-of-the-art stable isotope analyses, computational science, and theoretical models to: 1) Reconstruct the distribution and availability of plant resources during the environmental shifts of the late Pleistocene and the early Holocene; 2) Determine how plant procurement strategies, land uses and management activities articulated during the Epipalaeolithic period; and 3) Define hunter-gatherers' food culture, assessing their plant-food selection, processing and consumption practices. Taken together, PalaeOrigins will move beyond traditional Neolithic-centred paradigms to explain the origins of plant-food production. It will open up new research horizons, merging science and theory, to elucidate the nature of the human-environment interactions that paved the way to agriculture, and ultimately, changed the course of our history.
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistoryprehistory
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencescomputational science
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutrition
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencespalaeontologypaleoecology
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyarchaeologybioarchaeology
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsGastgebende Einrichtung
48940 Leioa
Spanien