Title: 55° North, 55° South: Effects of global climate change on prehistoric coastal populations and marine ecosystems of the eastern pacific
The archaeological records of the Northeast Pacific and Tierra del Fuego coastlines are well known and provide data critical to understanding the effects of climate change on humans and the marine ecosystems they relied upon. Using thousands of fish, bird, sea mammal and shellfish samples from archaeological sites spanning 5000 years in both regions, stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen will be used to investigate the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems in 100-500 year time scales. These data will be correlated with extant data from archaeological, ice core, pollen, and lake core records to investigate the effects of ecosystem disruptions on human adaptive strategies, the long-term dynamics of marine ecosystems, and marine responses to global and regional climatic events. The data will reveal important long-term relationships between overall marine productivity, oceanic food webs, and climatic change while human responses to these changes will be studied through changes in settlement and demographic patterns, socio-political organization and adaptive strategies. This project is the first comparison of ecosystem and paleoclimate change and human responses to these changes between the sub-Arctic and sub-Antarctic regions. The long-term records can be applied to better understanding how to insure the future of fisheries and the fishing communities themselves in both these areas.
