Davis Dylan S, Tucker Bram, Justome Ricky, Chrisostome Zafy Maharesy, Pierre Briand Venance, Domic Alejandra I, Phelps Leanne N, Ibirogba Abiola, Mangut Chiamaka, Klehm Carla E, Douglass Kristina
Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA; Division of Biology and Paleoenvironment, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, USA; Columbia Center for Archaeology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
J Soc Archaeol. 2024 Oct;24(3):221-245. doi: 10.1177/14696053241260032. Epub 2024 Jun 24.
Many communities in southwestern Madagascar rely on a mix of foraging, fishing, farming, and herding, with cattle central to local cultures, rituals, and intergenerational wealth transfer. Today these livelihoods are critically threatened by the intensifying effects of climate change and biodiversity loss. Improved understanding of ancient community-environment dynamics can help identify pathways to livelihood sustainability. Multidisciplinary approaches have great potential to improve our understanding of human-environment interactions across spatio-temporal scales. We combine archaeological survey data, oral history interviews, and high-resolution multispectral PlanetScope imagery to explore 400 years of human-environment interaction in the Namonte Basin. Our analysis reveals that settlement and land-use led to significant changes in the region's ecology, both during periods of occupation and after settlement abandonment. Human activity over this period may have stabilized vegetative systems, whereby seasonal changes in vegetative health were reduced compared to surrounding locations. These ecological legacies may have buffered communities against unpredictable climate challenges.
马达加斯加西南部的许多社区依赖于觅食、捕鱼、农耕和畜牧的混合生计方式，牛在当地文化、仪式和代际财富传承中占据核心地位。如今，这些生计正受到气候变化加剧和生物多样性丧失的严重威胁。更好地理解古代社区与环境的动态关系有助于确定实现生计可持续性的途径。多学科方法在提高我们对跨时空尺度上人类与环境相互作用的理解方面具有巨大潜力。我们结合考古调查数据、口述历史访谈和高分辨率多光谱PlanetScope影像，来探索纳米特盆地400年来的人类与环境相互作用。我们的分析表明，在有人居住期间以及定居点被废弃之后，定居和土地利用导致了该地区生态的显著变化。在此期间，人类活动可能使植被系统趋于稳定，与周边地区相比，植被健康状况的季节性变化有所减少。这些生态遗产可能为社区抵御不可预测的气候挑战提供了缓冲。
