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Modelling Anthropocene Trophic Cascades of the Judean Desert Ecosystem: A Hidden Dimension in the History of Human-Environment Interactions

Project description

A historical exploration of human impact on the environment

Better understanding historical human impact on the environment is important for today’s resource management planning. The EU-funded DEADSEA_ECO project will shed new light on the role of feedback effects in ecological systems in the past. Bioarchaeological methods will be used to study uniquely preserved material records from the middle and late Holocene settlement sequence (4 500 BCE to 700 CE) of the Dead Sea Ein Gedi Oasis and the contemporary palaeontological assemblages from caves in the surrounding Judean Desert. By bridging aspects of current thinking on ecosystem dynamics and the study of humans’ past, the project will be able to define the role of trophic cascades as an invisible dimension of Anthropocene life in marginal environments.

Objective

This project aims to explore the effects of human settlement intensity on desert ecological community structure, focusing on the hitherto unstudied phenomenon of trophic cascades in antiquity. Its key research question is whether human-induced changes in arid land biodiversity can feedback to affect natural resources important for human subsistence, such as pasture and wood. The role of such feedback effects in ecological systems is increasingly acknowledged in recent years in the biological literature but has not been addressed in the study of human past. The research question will be approached using bioarchaeological methods applied to the uniquely-preserved material record from the middle and late Holocene settlement sequence (approximately 4,500 BCE to 700 CE) of the Dead Sea Ein Gedi Oasis, and to the contemporary palaeontological assemblages from caves located in the surrounding Judean Desert. The proposed research is expected to bridge between aspects of current thinking on ecosystem dynamics and the study of human past by exploring the role of trophic cascades as an invisible dimension of Anthropocene life in marginal environments. The study of the history of human impact on such environments is important to resource management planning across a rapidly expanding ecological frontier on Earth, as climate deterioration brings more people in contact with life-sustaining and sensitive arid land ecosystems.

Fields of science

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Host institution

UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA
Net EU contribution
€ 1 499 562,50
Address
ABBA KHUSHY BLVD MOUNT CARMEL
31905 Haifa
Israel

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 1 499 562,50

Beneficiaries (1)