Excavation of Middle Stone Age Occupation Horizons at the Katanda Sites, Semliki Valley, Zaire

已知最早的解剖学上的现代人类遗骸出现在 非洲 这些遗骸与人们在 中石器时代（MSA）活动。 最深入的研究 对MSA人的影响一直在南非的开普省， 在刚果民主共和国的卡坦达地区也发现了遗骸。 扎伊尔东部的塞姆利基山谷。 卡坦达遗址是 与鱼类遗骸有关，这表明 资源的使用可能要早得多， 南非网站 卡坦达的一个遗址也已经 六个有倒钩的骨尖，估计可以追溯到大约 距今4万年前，已知最早的 复杂的骨骼技术 这笔赠款将允许进一步 古土壤相关遗迹的挖掘， 卡坦达遗址 它还将允许测量和测绘 古土壤层沿着大约3公里的暴露， 为了将考古发现置于更广泛的区域， 它将使使用剂量计和其他 更准确地确定这些MSA的年龄 地平线 该项目将扩大以前赞助的 从一个非常有前途的地方挖掘出来， 非洲中部中石器时代的新发现。 这 这项工作将有助于我们了解 它也将有助于我们更广泛地 对现代人类进化过程的理解 人类与新技术的发展有关， 开发新的环境和食物来源。

The earliest known remains of anatomically modern humans occur in Africa. These remains are associated with people practicing Middle Stone Age (MSA) activities. The most intensive research on MSA peoples has been in the Cape Province of South Africa, but remains also have been uncovered in the Katanda area of the Semliki Valley in eastern Zaire. The Katanda sites are associated with fish remains, which suggest that aquatic resources may have been used much earlier than is evident at the South African sites. One of the Katanda sites also has yielded six barbed bone points, which are estimated to date from about 40,000 years before the present, the earliest known record of complex bone technology. This grant will permit further excavation of paleosol-related remains at the most productive of the Katanda sites. It also will permit surveying and mapping of the paleosol horizon along a roughly three kilometer exposure in order to place the archaeological findings in a broader regional context, and it will enable use of dosimeters and additional samples to determine more accurately the age of these MSA horizons. This project will expand on the work of previously sponsored excavations from a very promising site, which already has shed new light on Middle Stone Age peoples in central Africa. This work will contribute to our knowledge about the specific features of this site, and it also will contribute to our more general understandings of the processes by which evolution of modern humans was related to the development of new technologies and the exploitation of new environments and food sources.