Prehistoric Ancestors’ Response to Past Climate Change Useful Today
12.03.2010 - Human Dimension, Arctic
Since 2004, a team of scientists headed by the University at Buffalo anthropologist Ezra Zubrow has been working in the Arctic regions of Québec, northern Finland and Kamchatka (Russia) in an effort to understand how humans responded to climate changes some 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. The team hopes that the vast array of archaeological and paleoenvironmental data collected from the circumpolar north will provide insights for a more effective collaboration between social, natural and medical sciences to devise adequate responses to current global warming.
Although 21st century people have been warned of the consequences of global warming, our ancestors from the Holocene could not have predicted the changes they would be facing. However the change that occurred back then was slower (about one-third the current rate), and it took the Earth a thousand years to warm as much as it has over the past 300 years.
The aim of the study is to clarify ancient regional chronologies and gain better insight into the adapting mechanisms put in place by prehistoric humans to face significant environmental changes. Despite modern technology, the location of human habitats has remained roughly the same: along estuaries and coastlines that are bound to suffer change significantly as the sea level rises.
Final conclusions for the study will be drawn after comparison with the compiled data from the two other sites under study.
