Geoarchaeological Contexts of Human Occupation During Lower Palaeolithic Eurasia: A Micromorphological Study of Sediments from 'Ubeidiya , Dmanisi and Gran Dolina-TD10

在国家科学基金会的支持下，研究生卡罗莱纳马约尔将进行她的论文研究的分析阶段，其中包括对三个不同的旧石器时代晚期遗址的地质考古研究。作为研究的主要重点，将应用土壤微形态学技术（土壤/沉积物的显微分析）来研究旧大陆原始人职业的性质，在170万年前的Dmanisi（格鲁吉亚共和国），140万年前的Ubeidiya（以色列）和30万年前的Atapuerca-TD 10（西班牙）。这项工作的目标是确定人类遗骸，如史前火灾的残留物，以高精度描述它们的特征，并将它们与这些地点的原始人可能进行的活动联系起来。该研究与上述每个遗址正在进行的考古项目相结合，并证明了一种成功的多学科努力，因为来自其他子学科（如动物考古学和石器技术）的其他团队成员的现有分析结果被认为是对这项工作的补充。土壤微形态学已成功地应用于几个史前遗址，揭示了逃避现场观察和实验室分析的活动和解释的细节。 在这类地质考古研究中，第一阶段需要了解史前沉积物是如何积累的，以及在什么样的环境条件下积累的，然后从考古学的角度利用从恢复的遗骸中获得的数据进行分析。这种技术所能达到的高分辨率将有助于在早期原始人类行为的背景下测试目前争论不休的假设，例如使用火。从Ubeidiya、Dmanisi和Atapuerca获得的关于职业背景的确切性质的结论，将为进一步解释早期原始人类行为提供坚实的背景。特别重要的是，这三个主要的考古遗址代表了欧亚大陆最早的人科动物职业，包含有充分记录的石器，动物群和古人类学组合。第一次从非洲大陆向外迁移，在欧亚大陆温带地区殖民，以及在人类前所未有的栖息地定居，这些都是包括对所讨论的原始人类种群的形态和行为影响的惊人事件。虽然古人类学和考古学可以向我们揭示这些事件的特征，但通过土壤微形态学寻找肉眼可见的考古证据可以提供有关自然和人为背景的可靠信息。

With National Science Foundation support graduate student Carolina Mallol will conduct the analytic stage of her dissertation research, which comprises a geoarchaeological study of three different Lower Paleolithic sites. As the main focus of the research, the technique of soil micromorphology (the microscopic analysis of soils/sediments) will be applied to examine the nature of hominid occupations in the Old World at, Dmanisi (Republic of Georgia) 1.7 million years ago, and 'Ubeidiya (Israel) 1.4 million years ago, and Atapuerca-TD10 (Spain) 0.3 million years ago. The goal of this work is to identify anthropogenic remains such as the residues of prehistoric fires, to characterize them at a high level of accuracy and to associate them with activities that might have been performed by hominids at these sites. The research is integrated with the ongoing archaeological projects at each of the above-mentioned sites and exemplifies a form of successful multidisciplinary effort given that existing analytic results by other team members from other subdisciplines such as zooarchaeology and lithic technology are being considered complementary to this work. Soil micromorphology has been successfully applied to several prehistoric sites, revealing details of activities and interpretations that escaped field observation and laboratory analysis. In a geo-archaeological study of this kind, the first stage entails how the prehistoric deposits accumulated and under what kind of environmental conditions, followed by their analysis from an archaeological perspective using data available from the recovered remains. The high degree of resolution that can be accomplished by this technique will facilitate testing the currently debated hypotheses in the context of early hominid behavior, such as the use of fire. Conclusions obtained about the precise nature of the occupational contexts from 'Ubeidiya, Dmanisi and Atapuerca will represent a solid background on which to base further interpretations of early hominid behavior. Particularly significant is the fact that these three major archaeological sites represent the earliest hominid occupations of Eurasia containing well-documented lithic, faunal, and paleoanthropological assemblages. The first migrations out of the African continent, the colonization of temperate regions of Eurasia, and settlement in habitats where humankind was unprecedented, are phenomenal events that encompass morphological and behavioral implications for the hominid populations in question. While paleoanthropology and archaeology can reveal features of these events to us, search for archaeological evidence beyond the visibility of the naked eye, through soil micromorphology can provide reliable information concerning the natural and anthropogenic contexts.