Late Quaternary Adaptations in the Central Rift Valley, Kenya

肯尼亚中央裂谷的晚第四纪适应

• 批准号: 8707150
• 负责人: Stanley Ambrose
• 金额: $ 11.5万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1987
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1987-07-01 至 1989-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8707150&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Late; Quaternary; Adaptations; Central; Rift

This grant permits Dr. Ambrose and his colleagues to conduct one season of archaeological excavation at the site of Twilight Cave, located in the Naivasha Basin of Kenya's Rift Valley. Previous work at the site has revealed a long and well stratified sequence which extends from the Pleistocene (Ice Age) into recent times. Continued work at the site should provide evidence for: the antiquity of the Late Stone Age mesolithic tradition in East Africa and the subsistence base of these hunter.gatherers; the cultural and adaptive changes which accompanied the end of the Pleistocene; the age of the introduction of pottery and domestic animals. With this information it should be possible to determine the nature of subsistence and settlement patterns through time. These goals with be accomplished through excavation and collection of faunal, cultural and other biological remains. Stable carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotope analyses of organic and inorganic fractions of bones and sediments should provide insight into environmental change over time. The question of how hunters and gatherers adapted to long term environmental fluxuation is of interest to anthropologists. Consideration of this requires a detailed and long term cultural sequence as well as good paleoenvironmental data. Sites which provide such information . as Twilight Cave does . are rare and therefore valuable. This research is important for the insights it will yield about how humans adapt at a simple level of technology. It is also important because of the scientific ties it will help build with Kenya. Dr. Ambrose has worked closely with Kenyan scientists, helped to train them, and included them in his research. Because of the important scientific materials which Kenya contains, it is valuable to strengthen this bilateral relationship.

这笔赠款允许安布罗斯博士和他的同事在位于肯尼亚大裂谷奈瓦沙盆地的暮光洞遗址进行一个季节的考古发掘。该遗址之前的工作揭示了一个漫长且分层良好的序列，从更新世（冰河时代）一直延伸到近代。 该遗址的持续工作将为以下方面提供证据：东非石器时代晚期中石器传统的古老性以及这些狩猎采集者的生存基础；更新世末期伴随的文化和适应性变化；陶器和家畜传入的时代。有了这些信息，应该可以确定随时间变化的生存性质和定居模式。 这些目标可以通过挖掘和收集动物、文化和其他生物遗迹来实现。 对骨骼和沉积物的有机和无机部分进行稳定的碳、氮和氧同位素分析应该可以深入了解环境随时间的变化。 人类学家感兴趣的问题是狩猎者和采集者如何适应长期的环境变化。 对此的考虑需要详细且长期的文化序列以及良好的古环境数据。提供此类信息的网站。就像暮光之洞一样。是稀有的，因此很有价值。 这项研究对于深入了解人类如何在简单的技术水平上适应非常重要。这也很重要，因为它将有助于与肯尼亚建立科学联系。安布罗斯博士与肯尼亚科学家密切合作，帮助培训他们，并将他们纳入他的研究中。由于肯尼亚拥有重要的科学资料，加强这种双边关系很有价值。