Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CLIOARCH (Cliodynamic archaeology: Computational approaches to Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic archaeology and climate change)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-09-01 al 2024-02-29
Late Pleistocene/early Holocene Europe is said to be the ideal laboratory for the investigation of human responses to rapidly changing climates and environments, migration and adaptation. Yet, pinpointing precisely how and why contemporaneous Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic (15,000-11,000 years BP) foragers migrated, and which environmental or other factors they adapted to – or failed to – has remained remarkably elusive. At the core of CLIOARCH is the radical but, in light of research-historical insights, necessary hypothesis that the current archaeological cultural taxonomy for this iconic period of European prehistory is epistemologically flawed and that operationalisations and interpretations based on this traditional taxonomy – especially those that seek to relate observed changes in material culture and land-use to contemporaneous climatic and environmental changes – are therefore problematic. Hence, novel approaches to crafting the taxonomic building blocks are required, as are novel analyses of human|environment relations in this period. CLIOARCH’s premier ambition is to provide operational cultural taxonomies for the Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic of Europe and to couple these with interdisciplinary cultural evolutionary, quantitative ecological methods and field archaeological investigations beyond the state-of-the-art, so as to better capture such adaptations – almost certainly with major implications for the standard culture-historical narrative relating to this period. In so doing, the project will pioneer a fully transparent and replicable – and eminently transferable – methodology for the study of the impacts of climate change and extreme environmental events in deep history. In turn, such a quantitative understanding of past adaptive dynamics will position archaeology more centrally in contemporary debates about climate change, environmental catastrophe and their cultural dimensions.
Since the beginning of this project, the incomensurability of cultural taxa in archaeology has not been resolved - on the contrary. This particular issue may seem opaque and rather academic but it is of central importance if our goal is to understand how and why cultures change. If our units of analysis are flawed, our results will inevitably be spurious. This, in turn, is important for society at large because archaeology provides important insights about how climate change shapes the course of historical developments. Attributing culture change to climate drivers needs to b robust, however, so using well-defined analytical units and transparent and replicable methods is essential.
CLIOARCH overall objectives are to first define – quantitatively and replicably - robust ‘palaeocultural’ analytical units using computational tools, then to feed these forward into algorithmic environments that allow us to relate their spatial and temporal distribution to climatic and topographic parameters using so-called eco-cultural niche modelling. Finally, we all seek to ground-proof these computational analyses via fieldwork.
Since the beginning of this project, the incomensurability of cultural taxa in archaeology has not been resolved - on the contrary. This particular issue may seem opaque and rather academic but it is of central importance if our goal is to understand how and why cultures change. If our units of analysis are flawed, our results will inevitably be spurious. This, in turn, is important for society at large because archaeology provides important insights about how climate change shapes the course of historical developments. Attributing culture change to climate drivers needs to b robust, however, so using well-defined analytical units and transparent and replicable methods is essential.
CLIOARCH overall objectives are to first define – quantitatively and replicably - robust ‘palaeocultural’ analytical units using computational tools, then to feed these forward into algorithmic environments that allow us to relate their spatial and temporal distribution to climatic and topographic parameters using so-called eco-cultural niche modelling. Finally, we all seek to ground-proof these computational analyses via fieldwork.
Foundational research and project staff recruitment is underway. The first and second annual workshops have been held, and publications are underway. This includes a special issue of the Journal of Palaeolithic Archaeology dedicated to archaeological classification and taxonomy and an edited volume in classification, theory and computation.
In addition, major data gathering and analytical work is on-going and field projects are being set up. Under severe covid restrictions, we used one workshop to gather an extensive dataset that we are currently using to explore different ways of classifying archaeological materials and to conduct inter-regional comparison. Our field efforts are also continuing, although the covid lockdown has also impacted site selection and focus.
Climate modelling is proceeding well with initial results already published and more exciting studies underway. Here, the timing could hardly have been better. New estimates of volcanic aerosol input into the atmosphere have – with our contribution – just been published and several research groups are working on the impact of multiple volcanic eruptions on Late Pleistocene climate. In addition, several papers related to eco-cultural niche modelling: One such study (being revised for Nature Communications) quantifies, via novel approaches, the climatic factors that limited past human population densities and, uniquely, projects the changing dynamics of these limiting factors onto space. The facilitates a much more precise understanding of which technologies allowed contemporaneous human communities to overcome these limits – how they adapted. The other study (being revised for Current Anthropology) uses eco-cultural niche modelling tools to specifically investigate the very earliest colonization of northern Europe at the end of the last ice age. Using brand new climate model data, we investigate the relative roles. Of temperature and precipitation in this dispersal episode and just how the niche space of the dispersing groups changed over time. In contrast to the first study which focused on how these past foragers adapted, this study instead interrogates a case where human groups arguably failed to adapt. Taken together, they provide a balanced view of past societies’ abilities to meet the challenges of the environment but also how they partly governed by it.
In addition, major data gathering and analytical work is on-going and field projects are being set up. Under severe covid restrictions, we used one workshop to gather an extensive dataset that we are currently using to explore different ways of classifying archaeological materials and to conduct inter-regional comparison. Our field efforts are also continuing, although the covid lockdown has also impacted site selection and focus.
Climate modelling is proceeding well with initial results already published and more exciting studies underway. Here, the timing could hardly have been better. New estimates of volcanic aerosol input into the atmosphere have – with our contribution – just been published and several research groups are working on the impact of multiple volcanic eruptions on Late Pleistocene climate. In addition, several papers related to eco-cultural niche modelling: One such study (being revised for Nature Communications) quantifies, via novel approaches, the climatic factors that limited past human population densities and, uniquely, projects the changing dynamics of these limiting factors onto space. The facilitates a much more precise understanding of which technologies allowed contemporaneous human communities to overcome these limits – how they adapted. The other study (being revised for Current Anthropology) uses eco-cultural niche modelling tools to specifically investigate the very earliest colonization of northern Europe at the end of the last ice age. Using brand new climate model data, we investigate the relative roles. Of temperature and precipitation in this dispersal episode and just how the niche space of the dispersing groups changed over time. In contrast to the first study which focused on how these past foragers adapted, this study instead interrogates a case where human groups arguably failed to adapt. Taken together, they provide a balanced view of past societies’ abilities to meet the challenges of the environment but also how they partly governed by it.
The project will pioneer a fully transparent and replicable – and eminently transferable – methodology for the study of the impacts of climate change and extreme environmental events in deep history. In turn, such a quantitative understanding of past adaptive dynamics will position archaeology more centrally in contemporary debates about climate change, environmental catastrophe and their cultural dimensions.
Already now, we have pushed the envelope on a range of fronts. We are developing protocols for the geometric morphometric analysis of unifacial stone tools geared towards activating large amounts of legacy data obtained from drawings/photographs. We are also applying so-called distribution modelling algorithms/eco-cultural niche modelling to archaeological datasets in order to understand the relations of ancient human communities – by proxy of their archaeological record – to climate and topography. Finally, we are experimenting with the use of predictive algorithms in searching for sites to excavate. Good progress is made on all these fronts.
Already now, we have pushed the envelope on a range of fronts. We are developing protocols for the geometric morphometric analysis of unifacial stone tools geared towards activating large amounts of legacy data obtained from drawings/photographs. We are also applying so-called distribution modelling algorithms/eco-cultural niche modelling to archaeological datasets in order to understand the relations of ancient human communities – by proxy of their archaeological record – to climate and topography. Finally, we are experimenting with the use of predictive algorithms in searching for sites to excavate. Good progress is made on all these fronts.