Dissertation Research: The Ethnoarchaeology of Gamo Artisans

在Dr. Steven Brandt的指导下，MS . Kathryn Weedman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民族志田野调查。加莫人非常不寻常，因为他们制作片状石器，并在生产活动中使用这些工具。只有在埃塞俄比亚的这部分地区，现在的人群还保留着这种史前的习俗。加莫人被划分为10个民族内部区域，Weedman女士将研究他们在工具生产和利用方面的差异。在她研究的早期，她将进行一项民族志调查，以确定石匠的位置，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、使用过的和废弃的工具样本。在此基础上，将兽皮工人的地理距离与他们的石器工具所显示的相似性和差异性进行比较是可能的。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，并仔细记录工具制造和使用的过程。Weedman女士将尝试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可变性。工人将被录像和拍照，详细记录生产和使用情况。收集到的工具将按照考古学家用来研究史前标本的技术进行分析，并将结果与加莫定义的类别进行比较。除了最近几千年，人类一直缺乏加工金属的能力，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发挥了如此重要的作用，而且数量众多，保存完好，考古学家在试图重建过去的文化时严重依赖于它们。他们对工具的使用方式做出了许多假设，并开发了许多分析技术来研究它们。然而，由于很少有现代人使用这些工具，因此缺乏详细的人种学研究，考古学家也不知道他们的假设和方法有多可靠。Weedman女士的研究将允许她根据人种学的现实来检验这些考古方法，然后努力改进和发展它们。这项工作的结果将具有重要的方法论意义。

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.