Landscape Ecology and Hominid Land Use in the Lowermost Bed II Olduvai Basin

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Robert Blumenschine博士和他的同事们将继续在坦桑尼亚北部的Olduvai Gorge进行考古研究。在两个季节的实地考察过程中，他们将专注于可追溯到200万年前的地层地平线，其中保存了人类活动的痕迹。布鲁门谢尼博士和他的同事们将继续通过精心控制的挖掘对这一地平线进行采样，并将收集石器文物和动物群遗骸。由于它跨越了相当大的水平距离，通过样本的比较，该团队将能够重建广泛的原始人(以及可能的非原始人)活动，洞察地理上不同的行为，并将其置于环境框架中。为了进一步研究环境方面的问题，该团队将从挖掘中收集沉积物、古土壤和碳酸盐样本，以进行粒度、矿物学、稳定碳和氧同位素的分析。对这些地质样品的实验室分析将为解释考古模式提供背景信息。单晶激光聚变、Ar-Ar定年和微量元素分析将有助于在目标单位内建立更精细的时间控制。这项研究之所以意义重大，主要有两个原因。首先，它将为人类文化能力的出现提供新的线索。奥杜瓦伊峡谷不仅发现了重要的原始人化石遗骸，还发现了大量的石器组合和明显相关的动物群。这些材料为考察早期原始人的文化能力提供了一个重点。古人类学家利用奥杜瓦伊遗址的数据，对肉类在早期原始人饮食中的作用等问题进行了推测，并质疑这些人是否有狩猎的能力。大多数可用的数据来自“遗址”，即密集的、空间上聚集的石块和骨骼遗骸群。然而，考古学家已经认识到，这样的集群只代表了原始人行为的一个方面，较小、密度较低的散布区域和根本没有材料的区域也可以提供重要的相关信息。Blumenschine博士和他的同事们将以系统的方式将他们的注意力集中在“星团”和站点之间的散布上。其次，这项工作将有助于开创景观考古领域的先河。该团队将开发收集和分析非遗址数据的技术，这些方法将适用于各种考古情况。这项工作将提供对早期原始人行为的洞察。它将产生许多考古学家感兴趣的数据，并有助于坦桑尼亚研究人员的培训。它将有助于加强非洲和美国科学家之间的科学联系。

With National science Foundation support, Dr. Robert Blumenschine and his colleagues will continue their archaeological research at Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania. Over the course of two seasons' of fieldwork, they will focus on a stratigraphic horizon which dates to just under 2 million years ago and which preserve traces of human activity. Dr. Blumenschine and colleagues will continue to sample this horizon through carefully controlled excavation and will collect both stone artifacts and faunal remains. Because it extends over a considerable horizontal distance, through comparison of samples, the team will be able to reconstruct a broad range of hominid (and likely non-hominid) activities, gain insight into geographically varied behavior, and place this in an environmental framework. To further the environmental aspect of the research, the team will collect sediment, paleosol and carbonate samples from the excavations for analyses of grain size, mineralogy, stable carbon and oxygen isotopes. Laboratory analyses of these geological samples will provide contextual information for interpreting archaeological patterning. Single crystal laser fusion argon-argon dating and trace element analyses will serve to establish finer temporal control within the target unit. This research is significant for two primary reasons. First it will shed new light on the emergence of human cultural capabilities. Olduvai Gorge has yielded not only important hominid fossil remains, but also numerous assemblages of stone tools and apparently associated fauna. These materials have provided a focus for examination of the cultural capacities of early hominids. Using data from the Olduvai sites paleoanthropologists have speculated on issues such as the role of meat in early hominid diet and questioned whether such peoples had the ability to hunt. Most of the available data comes from `sites` or dense, spacially clustered groups of stone and bone remains. Archaeologists however have come to realize that such clusters represent only one aspect of hominid behavior and that smaller less dense scatters and areas which have no material at all can also provide important relevant information. Dr. Blumenschine and colleagues will focus their attention in a systematic fashion on both the `clusters` and the scatter between the sites. Secondly, this work will help to pioneer the field of `landscape archaeology.` The team will develop techniques for the collection and analysis of non-site data and these methods will be applicable in a wide variety of archaeological situations. This work will provide insight into early hominid behavior. It will yield data of interest to many archaeologists and assist in the training of Tanzanian researchers. It will serve to strengthen the scientific ties between African and United States scientists.