Instrumentation for Landscape-Oriented Human Origins Research at Olduvai Gorge

奥杜瓦伊峡谷面向景观的人类起源研究仪器

• 批准号: 9602478
• 负责人: Robert Blumenschine
• 金额: $ 5.14万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-08-15 至 1998-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9602478&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Instrumentation; Landscape; Oriented; Human; Origins

With National Science Foundation support Drs. Robert Blumenschine and Fidelis Masao will purchase a new four-wheel drive vehicle to supplement existing vehicles used by their large, multidisciplinary Olduvai research project field team. They will also acquire a mirror stereoscope for interpretation of large-scale color aerial photographs to be obtained in the course of 1996 research as well as a desktop mapping software and associated hardware for the production of high resolution topographic maps from digitized aerial photographs. For several years this team has conducted archaeological research at this site in northern Tanzania. This area has yielded important hominid fossils as well as paleontological and cultural remains and the goal of the research is to reconstruct the prehistoric landscape at just under 2 million years ago and determine how early hominids distributed their activities over it. The team has followed a distinct geological horizon in lower Bed II which represents a limited period of time and excavated small test units at carefully selected intervals both to determine variation in landscape and the pattern of hominid use of it. Because of the large size of the field team and the isolated and rough terrain dependable four wheel drive vehicles are necessary. Likewise an accurate map derived from aerial photographs will provide an essential basic research tool. The research itself is important because it will shed important light on how early hominids behaved and help to determine the factors which shaped development of this species. The work will also yield new approaches to landscape analysis and the resultant techniques will be applicable in many archaeological situations in many parts of the world.

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Robert Blumenschine博士和Fidelis Masao博士将购买一辆新的四轮驱动汽车，以补充其大型多学科Olduvai研究项目现场团队使用的现有车辆。他们还将获得一台立体镜，用于判读1996年研究期间获得的大比例彩色航空照片，以及一台桌面绘图软件和有关硬件，用于从数字化航空照片制作高分辨率地形图。多年来，该团队一直在坦桑尼亚北方的这个遗址进行考古研究。这一地区已经发现了重要的原始人类化石以及古生物和文化遗迹，研究的目标是重建不到200万年前的史前景观，并确定早期原始人类如何在其上分布活动。研究小组在代表有限时间段的第二层下部追踪了一个明显的地质层位，并在精心选择的时间间隔内挖掘了小型测试单元，确定景观的变化以及原始人类使用景观的模式。由于野外团队规模庞大，地形偏僻且崎岖，因此需要可靠的四轮驱动车辆。同样，根据航空照片绘制的精确地图也将提供一种必不可少的基本研究工具。 这项研究本身很重要，因为它将揭示早期人类的行为方式，并有助于确定塑造该物种发展的因素。这项工作还将产生新的方法来景观分析和由此产生的技术将适用于许多考古情况在世界许多地区。