This is a project that is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation’s Directorate of Geosciences (NSF/GEO) and the National Environment Research Council (UKRI/NERC) of the United Kingdom (UK) via the NSF/GEO-NERC Lead Agency Agreement. This Agreement allows a single joint US/UK proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by the Agency whose investigator has the largest proportion of the budget. Upon successful joint determination of an award, each Agency funds the proportion of the budget and the investigators associated with its own investigators and component of the work. Arctic communities have a long history of endurance in extreme climates. How people responded to environmental change in the past is of direct relevance today and will offer those who live in the North a window into a time when ancient people found ways to endure in the most difficult circumstances. The research will document how periods of human settlement and abandonment in northern Greenland were related to climate fluctuations over the past 4500 years. In this remote region, climate change played a critical role in the survival of people by affecting vegetation and the abundance of grazing animals, as well as the presence of marine mammals on the coast. When climate was favorable, resources were abundant and the vulnerability of humans to environmental change was low. During times of less favorable climate, resources became more limited and sensitivity to fluctuations in climate increased. When conditions became sufficiently inhospitable to humans, exceeding the ability of people to adapt, they left the area for more favorable locations. The project will assess the conditions under which early people were able to adapt and survive, as well as conditions that may have led them to abandon the region. The project will examine interactions among physical, biological, and human systems in an extreme, High Arctic environment. The project will produce high resolution, quantitative records of climate and vegetation change from lake sediments, obtained from locations adjacent to prehistoric settlements. Measurements of the inorganic content, lipid biomarkers, compound specific stable isotopes, pollen and spores, chironomids, diatoms, and sedimentary ancient DNA will shed light on paleoclimate patterns in the region. An archaeological survey using fixed-wing drones will be conducted to inventory archaeological sites in the region, and the project will model past coastal sea-ice extent under different climatic conditions. Several students and early career researchers will be trained throughout the project, and outreach to communities in Greenland as well as students in the United States will communicate research outcomes to a wide audience.

The goal of this collaborative project between Bradley (2125994, Lead, University of Massachusetts Amherst), Balascio (2126047, College of William and Mary), D'Andrea (2126212, Columbia University), and Condron (2126042, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) is to understand interactions among components of the Arctic System (climate, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, sea-ice and glacier extent, and human activity) in Peary Land, north of the Greenland Ice Sheet, where people with stone tool technology survived for prolonged periods during the past 4,500 years. The project will yield continuous, high-resolution, quantitative records of climate and vegetation change from lake sediments adjacent to prehistoric settlements. In two summer field seasons (2022 and 2024), researchers will spend approximately two weeks each year collecting sediment cores from Midsommersø lake in Wandel Dal, from lakes proximal to the ice cap south of Wandel Dal, and from proglacial lakes in the valley that links Wandel Dal to J.P. Koch Fjord. Each year, the research team will travel to Longyearbyen, Svalbard (from the United States and from the Greenland National Museum and Archives), where they will charter to Villum Research Station at Station Nord, Greenland, which will serve as the staging point for travel to their field sites. The field camps will be established by Twin Otter and helicopter charters, and the Twin Otter will also provide fuel cache transportation for the helicopter charters in 2022 and 2023. Fieldwork in 2022 focused on core recovery from select basins of Midsommersø and a nearby lake. A second season was originally planned for 2023 but will occur in 2024. In 2024, the focus will be on recovering cores from ice marginal lakes and dating of moraines in valleys leading into Wandel Dal. The research team will travel to Longyearbyen, Svalbard (from the United States and from the Greenland National Museum and Archives), where they will travel via charter aircraft to Villum Research Station at Station Nord, Greenland. This will serve as the staging point for travel to their field sites. The field camps will be established by Twin Otter and helicopter charters, and the Twin Otter will also provide fuel cache transportation for the helicopter charter. Greenlandic colleagues will conduct drone surveys to inventory and classify archeological sites in and around Wandel Dal.

Battelle ARO will provide charter flights, user days at Villum Research Station (VRS), park entry fees, VRS rental equipment, VRS fuel, fixed-wing and helicopter air support charters, cargo support from Svalbard to VRS, a medical kit, and fuel cache. All other logistics will be arranged and paid for by the PI from the research grant.