Expressions of Intent for IPY 2007-2008 Activities

Expression of Interest Details

PROPOSAL INFORMATION

Initial Human Colonization of Arctic in Changing Palaeoenvironments  (ICOL)

Outline
Last decades saw the important changes in Arctic archaeology witnessing new significant discoveries of surprisingly early sites located at Northwestern Europe and East Siberia. The new data led to the radical revision of traditional views on the initial human dispersal and adaptations in High Latitudes. The schemes presented and repeated in manuals and textbooks are essential wrong and outdated. In spite of the unprecedented scale of field activity in different portions of this vast area, the projects are conducted by the individual and occasionally isolated regional research groups. It hampers the co-operation of scholars and coordination between field and laboratory research. To address these challenges during the International Polar Year, we have developed a new research programme known as ICOL - the Initial Human Colonization of Arctic in Changing Palaeoenvironments. Only by integrating results from archaeological and palaeoenvironmental studies will it b! e possible to develop a comprehensive understanding of Early Man dispersal and adaptations in extremely harsh conditions of Arctic and Subarctic. The territory of the Northern Eurasia is of prime importance for the comparative study of early human dispersal and adaptations. The glacial activity during the Late Pleistocene in this part of world was restricted (comparing with northern part of North America and some portions of the Southern Hemisphere occupied by giant glacial sheets) and vast areas allowed the rapid human dispersal. Moreover, this territory played a key role in human colonization of the Western Hemisphere via Beringia. The comprehensive studies of man-land relationships in the Upper Paleolithic will be carried out in several regions of the Eastern portion of the European Russia, the territories lying near the Ural Mountains, the Pechora River basin, as well as in Eastern Siberia (the Yana River). The study of the Early Man in the New World is of particular in! terest connected with the complicated history of the Bering Land Bridge. The study of late human penetration to High Latitudes in Holocene during the Ocean transgression is of no less importance. In this connection the Mesolithic and Neolithic sites located at the northern most part of Scandinavia, West Siberian Plain, and Novosibisk Islands (the Zhokhov Island site) will be main targets of research. The study of hunter-gatherers subsistence and adaptations will be supplemented by palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, including the studies of glacial activity, permafrost, vegetation and fauna. The starting points of migrated populations, possible migration routes and time will be defined. The chronological framework of the project will embrace different epochs from the Eemian Interglacial (phase 5e) to the Holocene.

What significant advance(s) in relation to the IPY themes and targets can be anticipated from this project?
The main goal for ICOL project is to study the complicated interplay between Pleistocene and Holocene environments and human dispersal and adaptations. This would make significant advances concerning the IPY defined themes 2 and 6.

What international collaboration is involved in this project?
International collaboration lies in the heart of ICOL. The project will involve the scholars from Russia, USA, Norway and Denmark.

FIELD ACTIVITY DETAILS

Geographical location(s) for the proposed field activities:
The project will be carried out on northern part of the Scandinavia (the Cola Peninsula and Lapland), northwestern portion of the European Russia (the Kama and Pechora River basins, the Barents Sea coastland), Western Siberia (the Yamal Peninsula), Eastern Siberia (the Novosibirsk Islands and the lower reaches of the Yana River), Chukotka, Alaska, and Greenland.

Approximate timeframe(s) for proposed field activities:
Arctic: 07/07-08/07       07/08-08/08      
Antarctic: n/a

Significant facilities will be required for this project:
The logistical support important or the realization of the project will include the helicopter, trucks, motorboats, coring equipment, and four-wheeler.

Will the project leave a legacy of infrastructure?
The infrastructure legacy will include intellectual advances, institutional collaboration, and training the next generation of polar researchers.

How is it envisaged that the required logistic support will be secured?
Own national polar operator
National agency

ICOL is a proposed umbrella program for the integration of research of the initial human colonization of High Latitudes during IPY. The required field logistics for the participating individual IPC subprojects will be addressed in their respective ‘Expression of Intent’.

Has the project been "endorsed" at a national or international level?
The Russian National IPY Committee has supported ICOL project during the meeting of the Committee at Sochi at 2005.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND STRUCTURE

Is the project a short-term expansion (over the IPY 2007-2008 timeframe) of an existing plan, programme or initiative or is it a new autonomous proposal?
No
ICOL is a continuation of various national and international research projects conducted in Russia by different branches and institutions of the Academy of Sciences. Main activities are executed within the framework of the Program P-34 ‘Natural processes in Polar Regions and prognostics of their development during the next decades’, and the Project 5.4 ‘Late Pleistocene and Holocene Paleoenvironments of Northern Eurasia during the initial human occupation’ supported by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

How will the project be organised and managed?
The initiative group of the project consists now of the Russian scholars. The ICOL activities will be managed by the international Steering Committee consisting of appointed member from each involved country. It will organize workshops, the field seminar at the Paleolithic sites located in Northeastern part of the European Russia, and publications. The project Committee’s main role will be to prepare the international conference during the final stage of the realization of the project. The meeting will be held at Moscow to discuss the various aspects of the final ICOL report presented as an atlas.

What are the initial plans of the project for addressing the education, outreach and communication issues outlined in the Framework document?
The ICOL web page will be hosted by the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; synthesized results will be assembled as maps and computer visualizations and made available through this web site. We anticipate that a large number of master and PhD students from different universities will be recruited to work on ICOL defined scientific challenges. For the first time we will develop the detailed maps of the routes of the early human migrations in the Northern Hemisphere at the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. A provisional scheme of time of the human colonization of different areas of Arctic and Subarctic will be carried out too. Our aim is to extend our knowledge of the man-land relationships, subsistence activities and human occupation of High Latitudes in different epochs.

What are the initial plans of the project to address data management issues (as outlined in the Framework document)?
The research findings will be presented as a series of comprehensive case studies of selected key stratified archaeological sites relevant to the initial phase of human occupation. Also the regional surveys of palaeoenvironments corresponding to different phase of human colonization of Arctic will be compiled. The regional databases will be synthesized during the final stage of the realization of the project. The initial plans for data management include the use of the PANGEA database hosted at the University of Bremen.

How is it proposed to fund the project?
The proposals for the ICOL regional subprojects, including the actual cost of field work/support, will be submitted to different national foundations (in Russia, for example, to the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, and the Russian Foundation for Human Sciences).

Is there additional information you wish to provide?
The interdisciplinary nature of the proposed project resulted in wide-scale co-operation of scientists, including Quaternary geology and geomorphology, lithology, geochemistry, pollen studies, pedology, palaeoclimatology, palaeogeography, geochronology, etc. The joint teams of archaeologists, geologists, paleogeographers will be involved in the realization of field projects carried out on the key Early Man sires in Arctic

PROPOSER DETAILS

Prof Andrey Velichko
Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Sciences
29 Staromonetnyi per. Moscow
109017
Russia

Tel: (+7)-095-238 02 98
Mobile:
Fax: (+7)-095-959 00 33
Email:

Other project members and their affiliation

Other Information