AWARE U.S.-China Cooperative Research on Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherers of the Tibetan Plateau

Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe NM

Investigators

Abstract

0214870 Brantingham This is a 36-month AWARE project submitted by Dr. Jeffery Brantingham, Santa Fe Institute with Professor MA Haizhou, Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Xinning, China, to study the Pleistocene hunter-gatherers of the Tibetan Plateau, and to provide an REU training opportunity for six "exceptional" U.S. undergraduate students. This is an excellent proposal to understand late Pleistocene human colonization and adaptation to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region. This study nicely integrates archeological, paleo-environmental, and geochronological research strategies to answer questions of broad importance in the study of evolution of behaviorally modern humans. This project provides excellent opportunities for U.S. undergraduate students to be trained in archeology and to learn to carry out field research in the western part of China. It also develops paleoclimatic proxy records that can be integrated into regional and global models of climate variability and change. The NSF and the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly support this project.