RESET: RESponse of humans to abrupt Environmental Transitions
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal Holloway University of London
Department Name: Geography
Abstract
The inability to synchronise records precisely compromises palaeoenvironmental and prehistoric archaeological research. We address this challenge through a five year consortium bid that brings together expertise from four institutions. Our aim is to re-assess the precise timing relationship between environmental and archaeological events. Our objective is to test the long-accepted hypothesis that major shifts in human development coincided with, or immediately followed, specified abrupt environmental transitions (AETs). The RESET consortium builds on existing collaborations between the four institutions. It combines expertise in human palaeontology and Palaeolithic archaeology with earth and marine scientists and science-based dating. The purpose of the consortium is to combine these interdisciplinary strengths in order to overcome the current impasse to synchronising between the varied archives available to RESET members. We will achieve this by fully exploiting the potential of physical time markers co-registered within key sedimentary archives: volcanic ash deposits. Crucially, we include the detection and identification to source of microtephras, to refine the framework provided by conventional tephrostratigraphy. On this basis, we will create a European-wide 'lattice' for synchronisation of palaeo-environmental and archaeological archives. For this project's aims to be realised, several co-dependent, strategic prerequisites must be met: (I) archaeological events must be selected that are unambiguous in their interpretation and wide in geographical impact; (II) the archaeological events should occur within time windows that are characterised by marked AETs that also impacted over wide areas; (III) several tephras must be common to the selected archaeological and environmental records to provide the isochronous tie-lines between them; and (IV) the sequences selected for study must satisfy a number of stratigraphical and analytical criteria which optimise the potential for developing age models of decadal to centennial resolution. A consortium approach is the only feasible way to (a) successfully integrate these demanding scientific co-prerequisites, (b) develop the new schema and (c) test its success in less than 10 or more years; we estimate that RESET can achieve these goals within 5 years. RESET members have proved the feasibility and potential of the project by achieving sub-centennial resolution on cores from the Soppensee (Switzerland) and through the identification of 24 additional microtephras layers in core SA03-11 from the Central Adriatic. The project will comprise seven workpackages led led by a PI and resourced with PDRAs, tied PhDs and technicians. The secondment of an experienced researcher (Dr.Housley) as project manager, with a proven record of administration and data management (ORADS, NERC standard grants), will ensure the consortium's goal of providing a step change to the scientific challenge through a well-coordinated approach. Specifically, workpackage 4 (WP-4 Geochemistry of tephras) will extend the resolution obtained in the proof of concept to other tephras and microtephras and then applied to five related workpackages examining archaeological (WP1-3) and environmental archives (WP5-6 marine and continental). Age modelling (WP-7) will integrate all workpackages into a single synchronised record. For application of this approach, we target key events and processes in human prehistory, including the timing of modern human arrivals in Europe, the effect of a changing Sahara on North African populations, and the repopulation of Europe after the LGM. These target events for RESET's approach encompass key AETs of the last 130,000 years, which will exemplify the power and benefits of this approach to both our specific objective, and the wider palaeo-environmental agenda.
Publications
Osborne AH
(2008)
A humid corridor across the Sahara for the migration of early modern humans out of Africa 120,000 years ago.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Riede F
(2011)
A Laacher See-eruption supplement to Tephrabase: Investigating distal tephra fallout dynamics
in Quaternary International
Stanford J
(2011)
A new concept for the paleoceanographic evolution of Heinrich event 1 in the North Atlantic
in Quaternary Science Reviews
Satow C
(2015)
A new contribution to the Late Quaternary tephrostratigraphy of the Mediterranean: Aegean Sea core LC21
in Quaternary Science Reviews
Blockley S
(2011)
A revised chronology for the adoption of agriculture in the Southern Levant and the role of Lateglacial climatic change
in Quaternary Science Reviews
Lane C
(2011)
A tephrochronology for the Lateglacial palynological record of the Endinger Bruch (Vorpommern, north-east Germany)
in Journal of Quaternary Science
Tomlinson E
(2014)
Age and geochemistry of tephra layers from Ischia, Italy: constraints from proximal-distal correlations with Lago Grande di Monticchio
in Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research
Rohling E
(2009)
Antarctic temperature and global sea level closely coupled over the past five glacial cycles
in Nature Geoscience
Roberts A
(2011)
Atmospheric dust variability from Arabia and China over the last 500,000 years
in Quaternary Science Reviews
Tomlinson E
(2020)
Chemical zoning and open system processes in the Laacher See magmatic system
in Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology
Rohling E
(2010)
Comparison between Holocene and Marine Isotope Stage-11 sea-level histories
in Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Rohling E
(2009)
Controls on the East Asian monsoon during the last glacial cycle, based on comparison between Hulu Cave and polar ice-core records
in Quaternary Science Reviews
Smith TM
(2010)
Dental evidence for ontogenetic differences between modern humans and Neanderthals.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Bourne A
(2010)
Distal tephra record for the last ca 105,000 years from core PRAD 1-2 in the central Adriatic Sea: implications for marine tephrostratigraphy
in Quaternary Science Reviews
Marino G
(2009)
Early and middle Holocene in the Aegean Sea: interplay between high and low latitude climate variability
in Quaternary Science Reviews
Endicott P
(2009)
Evaluating the mitochondrial timescale of human evolution.
in Trends in ecology & evolution
D'Errico F
(2011)
Evolution, revolution or saltation scenario for the emergence of modern cultures?
in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
Walker M
(2008)
Formal definition and dating of the GSSP (Global Stratotype Section and Point) for the base of the Holocene using the Greenland NGRIP ice core, and selected auxiliary records
in Journal of Quaternary Science
Lubell D
(2011)
Gastropods and humans in the late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of the western Mediterranean basin
in Quaternary International
Brown R
(2014)
Geochemical and isotopic insights into the assembly, evolution and disruption of a magmatic plumbing system before and after a cataclysmic caldera-collapse eruption at Ischia volcano (Italy)
in Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology
Tomlinson E
(2012)
Geochemistry of the Phlegraean Fields (Italy) proximal sources for major Mediterranean tephras: Implications for the dispersal of Plinian and co-ignimbritic components of explosive eruptions
in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta
Cross J
(2014)
High level triggers for explosive mafic volcanism: Albano Maar, Italy
in Lithos