Dissertation Research: The Ethnoarchaeology of Gamo Artisans

在Steven Brandt博士的指导下，Kathryn Weedman女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将在埃塞俄比亚西南部的加莫人中进行人种学田野调查。加莫人是非常不寻常的，因为他们制作片状的石器，并在生产活动中使用这些石器。只有在埃塞俄比亚的这一部分，今天的群体仍然保留着这种史前的习俗。加莫被分为十个种族内的部分和MS Weedman将检查在工具生产和利用他们的变化。在她研究的早期，她将进行一项民族志调查，以确定石工人的位置，并记录他们的背景和地理关系。将从每个工人那里收集新的、用过的和废弃的工具样本。在此基础上，将有可能比较皮革工人的地理距离与他们的石器所表现出的相似性和差异。初步访谈将侧重于亲属关系和其他类型的社会关系。在下一步的工作中，将详细研究选定的工匠样本，并仔细记录工具的制造和使用过程。威德曼女士将试图构建存在于用户头脑中的类型学，以辨别风格和功能方面的变化。工人将被录像和拍照，以详细记录生产和使用情况。收集的工具将按照考古学家研究史前标本的技术进行分析，并将结果与Gamo定义的类别进行比较。 在过去的几千年里，人类一直缺乏加工金属的能力，只能依靠从石头上凿下来的工具来完成各种各样的任务。已知最古老的例子可以追溯到200多万年前。由于石器在考古记录中扮演了如此重要的角色，并且数量丰富且保存完好，考古学家在试图重建过去文化时严重依赖它们。他们对如何使用工具做出了许多假设，并开发了许多分析技术来研究它们。然而，由于现代人很少使用这种工具，因此缺乏详细的民族志研究，考古学家不知道他们的假设和方法有多可靠。威德曼女士的研究将使她能够测试这些考古方法对民族志的现实，然后工作，以完善和发展他们。这项工作的结果将对方法产生重要影响。

Under the direction of Dr. Steven Brandt, MS Kathryn Weedman will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will conduct ethnographic fieldwork among the Gamo people of southwestern Ethiopia. The Gamo are extremely unusual because the make flaked stone tools and use these in their production activities. Only in this portion of Ethiopia do present day groups retain this prehistoric practice. The Gamo are divided into ten intra-ethnic sections and MS Weedman will examine variation in tool production and utilization across them. In the early part of her study she will conduct an ethnographic survey to locate stone workers and record their background and geographical relationships. A sample of new, used and discarded tools will be collected from each worker. On this basis it will be possible to compare the geographical distance of hide workers against the similarities and differences manifest in their stone tools. Preliminary interviews will focus on kinship and other types of social relationships. In the next step of the work a selected sample of artisans will be studied in detail and the process of tool manufacture and use carefully documented. MS Weedman will attempt to construct the typologies which exist in the users' heads to discern variability in terms of style and function. Workers will be video-taped and photographed to record production and utilization in detail. The collected tools will be analyzed following techniques which archaeologists employ to study prehistoric specimens and the results will be compared to categories defined by the Gamo. For all but the last few thousand years humans have lacked the ability to work metal and have relied on tools chipped from stone to accomplish a wide variety of tasks. The oldest known examples date to over two million years ago. Because stone tools have played such a crucial role and are abundant and well preserved in the archaeological record, archaeologists have relied heavily on them in their attempts to reconstruct past cultures. They have made many assumptions about how tools were used and have developed many analytic techniques to study them. However since so few modern day peoples use such implements, detailed ethnographic studies are lacking and archaeologists do not know how robust their assumptions and methodologies are. MS Weedman's research will permit her to test these archaeological approaches against an ethnographic reality and then work to refine and develop them. The results of this work will have important methodological implications.