Collaborative Research: Climate Change and Human Adaptation in Arctic-like Environments across the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition

Emerson College, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

Climate change has influenced people and societies throughout human history. This project investigates how human behavior was influenced by an extreme climate change event, specifically the large and abrupt warming that occurred when the last ice age transitioned to the current interglacial period, known as the Holocene Epoch. This project will focus on humans and climate in northern New England, where the warming drove a rapid transition from tundra vegetation to a forested environment. Understanding how climate and ecosystems changed over time and space in northern New England, as it transitioned from open tundra, will provide a valuable perspective into how modern Arctic areas at and above treeline may change with projected future warming. The project will result in a new understanding of long-term human history, including adaptations to rapid climate and environmental changes. This information will be conveyed to a broader audience through documentary films, news articles and the involvement of local and Indigenous communities, K-12 teachers, and high school students in research activities. In northern New England, the end of the Younger Dryas (YD) ∼11,700 years ago was marked by rapid warming and the transition from open tundra and spruce parkland environments – an environment that is closely analogous to parts of the Arctic today - to closed canopy forest. Human livelihoods also transformed, but the details of these changes are poorly resolved. Combining methods from archeology, paleolimnology and paleoecology, this collaboration will determine the extent to which warming-driven environmental changes (e.g., afforestation) in northern New England at the end of the YD corresponded to human adaptive responses, such as hypothesized reduced mobility and regional depopulation. The researchers will quantify past temperature changes and reconstruct paleoenvironmental conditions using lake sediments, with a focus on insect (chironomid) and pollen analyses. They will develop high-resolution chronologies for the YD-age Fluted-Point-Period and early Holocene-age Late Paleoindian Period stone tool industries. They will then combine these well-dated records to evaluate the relative timings of changes in climate, vegetation and human mobility, settlement patterns and technology. Project results will be shared with residents near study sites and broader audiences, and this project will train geoscience, journalism, and documentary film students at the researchers’ institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.