Dissertation Research: Zooarchaeology of Bed II, Olduval Gorge

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Under the direction of Dr. Robert Blumenschine, MS Amy Cushing will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will conduct laboratory analysis in Arusha Tanzania and examine the ca. 8,000 vertebrate fossils collected by Dr. Blumenschine and his colleagues in their multi-year ongoing research project at Olduvai Gorge. The team has focused on a single well defined stratigraphic horizon in lower Bed II which dates to ca. 1.5 million years ago. It has been sampled, and test excavations conducted across a 300 km .sq. area which includes six distinct paleogeographic zones. Seventy one trenches have been excavated. MS Cushing will first identify bones to taxon and, when possible, species. She will conduct a taphonomic analysis to determine how natural factors such as water and carnivore action have affected these materials. With these forces controlled, she will then search for human caused actions which will shed light on early hominid behavior. Preliminary study indicates that many of the specimens were broken by human percussion and this indicates either hunting or scavenging for food. Ms Cushing will: 1. test the representativeness of faunal data from individual trenches which contain high densities of remains ( and which could be called `sites`) as opposed to that of landscape samples. 2. determine in which habitats on the paleo-Olduvai landscape hominids preferred to carry out carcass processing activities; 3. identify where on the paleolandscape such animal resources were clustered by determining which habitats would have been more productive in terms of available carcass abundance; 4. understand how variation in the nature of animal communities affected early hominid behavior. Most archaeologists collect from and excavate `sites` where large concentrations of bone and other cultural materials provide clear cut evidence of a human presence. However such occurrences constitute one end of a continuum and a focus on `sites` alone ignores less dense scatters and patches of remains which are common on many landscapes. Such has been the case over several decades of research at Olduvai Gorge and archaeologists do not know how representative sites in fact are, or how site focused archaeology has biased our understanding of early human behavior. The Blumenschine project is unique because it has collected across the entire range of material densities and MS Cushing's analysis will allow a comparison across the span. It will not only increase understanding of prehistoric human behavior at Olduvai Gorge but also help archaeologists improve the techniques they use to collect and analyze excavated remains. It will also assist in training a promising young scientist.