Expanding the Interpretation of Oldowan Archaeofaunas with Comprehensive Bone Modification Studies

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Salvatore Capaldo博士将研究存放在肯尼亚国家博物馆的考古材料。他将检查从坦桑尼亚奥杜瓦伊峡谷遗址挖掘出来的动物遗骸，这些遗骸的年龄在160万年到180万年之间。因为人类行为的第一个物理副产品可以追溯到200多万年前，所以奥杜瓦伊的材料很重要，因为它们记录了人类发展的早期阶段。在奥杜瓦伊，考古学家发现了许多地区，在这些地区发现了石器和动物骨骼在空间上的密切联系。多年来，科学家们一直认为，这些集中的地方构成了狩猎者带着猎物的尸体，然后屠杀并吃掉它们的“地点”。然而，对动物遗骸的仔细研究发现了鬣狗和其他动物的牙印，“猎人”模型变得难以支持。例如，有可能猎物首先被非人类的食肉动物杀死，然后人类清除骨头以获取剩余的肉和骨髓碎片。还有一种可能是，许多食肉动物的牙印是在人类干预之后出现的。在实验工作中，卡帕尔多博士和他的同事们已经开发出了区分原始人和非原始人骨骼修饰的技术，并重建了这些发生的顺序。他将把这些程序应用到一系列奥杜瓦伊集合中。考古学家希望了解人类独特的行为特征是何时出现的，因为这将揭示导致人类行为可观察范围的过程。一些人认为，早期奥杜瓦伊时代的原始人拥有与近代人类有很多共同之处的行为习惯，而另一些人则不同意。考古学家想知道这些早期的人类是否能够独自狩猎大型动物，或者他们是否依赖于从食肉动物身上捡来的肉。卡帕尔多博士的研究应该有助于回答这个问题。这一结果将引起许多考古学家的兴趣。这项工作还将有助于改进可能广泛适用的分析技术。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Salvatore Capaldo will study archaeological materials stored in the National Museum of Kenya. He will examine faunal remains which date to between 1.6 and 1.8 million years in age and were excavated from the site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Because the first physical byproducts of human behavior date to just over 2 million years ago, the Olduvai materials are important because they document an early stage in the development of humans. At Olduvai archaeologists have uncovered numerous areas in which stone tools and animal bones have been found in close spatial association. For many years scientists believed that these concentrations constituted `sites` where hunters brought the bodies of prey animals and then butchered and ate them. However careful study of the faunal remains revealed toothmarks of hyenas and other animals and the `hunter` model became difficult to support. It is possible, for example that the prey were first killed by non-human carnivores and that humans scavenged the bones for the remaining scraps of meat and marrow. It is also possible that many of the carnivore toothmarks post-date hominid intervention. In experimental work, Dr. Capaldo and his colleagues have developed techniques for distinguishing between hominid and non-hominid bone modification and to reconstruct the order in which these took place. He will apply these procedures to a series of Olduvai assemblages. Archaeologists wish to understand when distinctively human behavioral traits emerged for this will shed light on the processes which led to the observable range of human behaviors. Some believe that hominids of early Olduvai times possessed a behavioral repertory which shared much with recent humans while others disagree. Archaeologists want to know whether these early people were able to hunt large animals on their own or whether they were dependent of meat scavenged from carnivore kills. Dr. Capaldo's research should help to answer this question. The results will be of interest to many archaeologists. The work will also assist in refining analytic techniques of potential wide applicability.