Descrizione del progetto
Uno sguardo più attento alle risposte ai cambiamenti climatici nell’antichità
Gli antichi adattamenti all’aumento delle temperature e alla scarsità d’acqua potrebbero essere una fonte di ispirazione per risolvere la crisi climatica di oggi. In particolare, l’emergere dell’addomesticamento degli animali nel Levante meridionale è un buon punto di riferimento per studiare i cambiamenti nelle strategie di sussistenza. Il progetto ICARHUS, finanziato dal programma di azioni Marie Skłodowska-Curie, combinerà l’archeologia e le scienze biologiche per studiare l’adattamento delle società levantine del passato alle pressioni climatiche. Il progetto utilizzerà il nuovo campo della paleoproteomica per migliorare le sequenze proteiche di riferimento disponibili, identificare i cambiamenti delle strategie di sussistenza in quattro siti archeologici giordani e recuperare informazioni sulle pratiche di allevamento orientate al sesso nelle mandrie di caprini.
Obiettivo
Facing the constraints imposed due to climate change is a challenge past human societies had to take into consideration, similar to how current societies are facing global changes in resource availability and climate change. By looking into the past and how ancient societies adapted to temperature increase and water availability decrease could help us to innovatively deal with the current climate crisis. In the Levant, where cattle, pigs, sheep and goat have been domesticated, ecological constraints are one of the major reasons for observed changes in subsistence strategies. Traditionally, comparative anatomy of fauna remains is the methodology of choice when aiming to reconstruct past subsistence strategies. But in arid environments, archaeological bones and teeth degrades rapidly, leading to highly fragmented and poorly preserved remains, thus largely restricting faunal spectra reconstruction. This project offers a glimpse at past Levantine societies adaptation to climatic pressures by using the new and exciting field of palaeoproteomics. The fellowship will concentrate on three defined scientific objectives: 1. enhance the available protein reference sequences, crucially lacking Near-Eastern wild ungulates species; 2. identify subsistence strategy shifts along four Jordanian archaeological sites, each containing well-established stratigraphies, using ancient proteins based species identification; and 3. recover information regarding sex-driven husbandry practices in caprine herds using the new method of enamel proteome sexing. The combination of archaeology and biological sciences within the frame of ICARHUS will give the opportunity to get a glimpse into past human societies agro-cultural behaviour using methodological developments of use beyond the field of bio-archaeological sciences.
Campo scientifico
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteinsproteomics
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineanatomy and morphology
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyarchaeologyethnoarchaeology
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animalsanimal husbandry
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-PF - MSCA-PFCoordinatore
1165 Kobenhavn
Danimarca