Field Research in the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia

这项研究涉及在埃塞俄比亚阿法尔洼地进行的古人类学田野调查。中阿瓦什研究项目是一项多学科的国际努力，旨在帮助阐明过去600万年中人类祖先和近亲的起源和进化。该研究项目优先考虑将考古和古生物学发现置于精确的时间地层和古环境背景中。中阿瓦什是非洲裂谷系的一个构造活跃的部分。该研究区域提供了由构造作用和侵蚀暴露的沉积物拼凑而成的，并通过互层火山层进行校准。这种独特的地质环境使该项目能够同时探索不同的时间范围，并产生与人类起源和进化的不同方面有关的数据。研究区发现了距今500万年的类人猿化石；比地球上任何地方都要长的记录。在这里已经发现了三个原始人类属的六个物种，旧石器时代技术发展的每个阶段都有代表。该项目的实地调查可以大致分为三个阶段，每个主要的化石沉积包。首先，探索识别并约束包。地质学家试图从年代上把它与其他地点联系起来，并与从邻近的亚丁湾海底采集的当代海洋沉积物岩心中嵌入的全球气候变化记录联系起来。接下来，重点研究在每个沉积物包中建立内容和年代地层关系，以岩石样本、化石和人工制品的形式产生许多原始数据。最后，随着侵蚀和挖掘的继续，对每个主要暴露的沉积包进行长期管理，可以回收更多的化石和人工制品。由当前提案资助的研究将代表研究领域全面探索的最后阶段。研究的重点是c. 5.2 myr、c. 2.5 myr和100万年的沉积包体。对相邻的、已经证实的地点的管理将提供额外的数据。

The research involves paleoanthropological fieldwork conducted in Ethiopia's Afar Depression. The Middle Awash research project is a multidisciplinary, international effort to help illuminate the origin and evolution of human ancestors and close relatives during the past six million years. The research project gives priority to placing archaeological and paleontological discoveries within accurate time-stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental contexts. The Middle Awash is a tectonically active segment of the African rift system. This study area offers a patchwork of sediments exposed by tectonic action and erosion, and calibrated by interbedded volcanic horizons. This unique set of geological circumstances allows the project to simultaneously explore different time horizons, and to generate data bearing on different aspects of human origins and evolution. The study area has yielded fossil hominoid remains spanning five million years; a longer record than is available anywhere else on earth. Six species in three hominid genera have already been discovered here, and every stage of paleolithic technological development is represented. The project's field investigations can be loosely divided into three stages for each major fossiliferous sedimentary package. First, exploration identifies and constrains the package. Geologists attempt to link it chronologically with other sites, and with the record of global climatic change embedded in cores of contemporary marine sediment taken from the floor of the adjacent Gulf of Aden. Next, focused research establishes the contents and chronostratigraphic relationships within each sediment package, generating much primary data in the form of rock samples, fossils, and artifacts. Finally, long-term management of each major exposed sedimentary package allows additional fossil and artifact recovery as erosion and excavation continue. Research funded by the current proposal will represent the final stage of overall exploration in the study area. Focused research is targeted on sedimentary packages in the critical c. 5.2 myr, c. 2.5 myr, and 1.0 million-year-old periods. Management of adjacent, already proven localities will provide additional data.