Description du projet
Comment l’interaction entre les hommes et les plantes a ouvert la voie à l’agriculture
Nous n’appréhendons pas encore complètement la manière dont les chasseurs-cueilleurs ont commencé à s’impliquer dans la gestion des végétaux. En utilisant essentiellement des restes de plantes provenant de sites archéologiques, le projet PalaeOrigins, financé par le Conseil européen de la recherche, étudiera la manière dont les chasseurs-cueilleurs de l’Épipaléolithique (il y a 23 000 à 11 600 ans) géraient leurs terres et leurs ressources végétales. Il cherchera également à déterminer si la dynamique climatique ou culturelle a conduit à la production de plantes à usage alimentaire. Le projet présentera une approche globale et à haute résolution pour examiner la subsistance fondée sur les plantes.
Objectif
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.
Champ scientifique
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistoryprehistory
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencescomputational science
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutrition
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencespalaeontologypaleoecology
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyarchaeologybioarchaeology
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsInstitution d’accueil
48940 Leioa
Espagne