Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Pastoral Neolithic of East Afica Revisited through a New Chronology for the Emergence of Pastoralism from Tsavo National Park, Kenya

在查普鲁卡·M·库辛巴博士的监督下，大卫·赖特将在肯尼亚察沃的Mtembea kwa Barafu遗址进行考古挖掘和分析。Mtembea kwa Barafu位于察沃东部国家公园内的加拉纳河畔，是一个至少可追溯到公元前2000年的史前大村庄。有证据表明，数千年来，这个村庄曾多次有人居住，因为在遗址上发现了不同层次的陶器、动物骨骼和石器，这些陶器、动物骨骼和石器被不同的河流梯田侵蚀。对该遗址最早的年代确定的占领发生在东非人民正在改变他们的生存模式，从单纯以狩猎和采集为基础，转向以驯化的食物产品为中心的时期。赖特的挖掘具有巨大的潜力，可以提高人们对环境和社会因素的普遍理解，这些因素在从觅食到驯化的转变中发挥了作用。考古学家长期以来一直对确定人们决定采用家养动物的方式、时间和原因感兴趣。几百万年来，原始人成功地狩猎和采集食物，但直到最近一万年，动植物的驯化才发生。驯化被认为是一种重要的社会转型--它允许人口稠密的城市中心、过剩的经济和赋予少数个人的政治权力的发展，而不是分散到整个社区。了解驯养动植物起源期间存在的环境条件，可以回答极端气候刺激是否在鼓励人们采用驯养动物方面发挥了作用。为了回答有关早期驯化过程的重要问题，加速器质谱仪(AMS)、放射性碳分析和光刺激发光(OSL)等高精度测年方法将提供人们在Mtembea kwa Barafu定居的准确年代学。这些方法还将有助于解释过去数千年来河流的淤积和下切，这是该地区一般环境条件的重要指标。再加上第四纪科学的进步，提供了对过去环境的详细的区域和全球了解，这些数据将对确定特定环境下Mtembea kwa Barafu的居住地非常重要。这项工作的结果是，考古学家将从一个遗址的角度有一个更清晰的图景，可以阐明数百万年来不间断地改变人类生存模式背后的一般动机。这些数据还将有助于为现代非洲牧民发展一个可持续的未来，他们面临着用于放牧和浇水的土地分配有限的挑战。通过审视过去成功的土地利用战略，规范牧场分配和限制资源使用的法律可以更有效地有针对性地满足今天牧民的需求，并为子孙后代保护生态系统。Tavo的研究议程是长期的，最终将寻求当地社区领导人的协助，向国际捐助者和制定土地管理政策的政府官员介绍过去和现在的牧民生活数据。然而，当前项目的资金将用于建立史前田园适应的数据集，并将在赖特即将发表的博士论文、同行评议的期刊和会议上发表。扩大向美国和国际公众展示的范围的未来努力将因今年项目中开展的研究而得到加强。

Under the supervision of Dr. Chapurukha M. Kusimba, David Wright will undertake archaeological excavations and analysis at the site of Mtembea kwa Barafu in Tsavo, Kenya. Mtembea kwa Barafu is located on the banks of the Galana River within Tsavo East National Park and was a large, prehistoric village that dates to at least 2,000 BC. There is evidence that the village was inhabited many times over thousands of years based on the discovery of distinct layers of pottery, animal bones and stone tools eroding from separate river terraces at the site. The earliest dated occupation of the site occurs at during the time when people in East Africa were changing their subsistence patterns from one that was based solely on hunting and gathering to one that revolved around domesticated food products. Wright's excavations have great potential to enhance general understandings of the environmental and social factors that played a role in the transition from foraging to domestication. Archaeologists have long been interested in determining how, when and why people decided to adopt domesticates. For millions of years, hominids successfully hunted and gathered their food, but only in the last 10,000 years has domestication of plants and animals occurred. Domestication is recognized as an important social transition-one that allowed for the development of densely populated urban centers, surplus economies and political power vested in small groups of individuals rather than spread throughout a community. Understanding the environmental conditions present during the origins of domesticated plants and animals can answer whether or not extreme climatic stimuli may have played a part in encouraging people to adopt domesticates. In order to answer important questions regarding incipient domestication processes high precision dating methods such as Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon analysis and Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) will provide an accurate chronology of when people settled at Mtembea kwa Barafu. These methods will also assist in interpreting river aggrading and downcutting for the last several thousand years, which is an important indicator of general environmental conditions in the area. Coupled with advances in the Quaternary sciences that are providing detailed regional and global understandings of past environments, these data will be important for framing occupations of Mtembea kwa Barafu in a specific environmental context.As a result of this work, archaeologists will have a clearer picture from the perspective of one site that can elucidate general motivations behind altering human subsistence patterns that functioned uninterrupted for millions of years. These data will also assist in developing a sustainable future for modern African pastoralists, who are challenged by restricted land allocations for grazing and watering their animals. By looking at successful land-use strategies of the past, the laws that regulate the distribution of grazing land and restrict the use of resources can be more effectively targeted to meet the needs of herding people today as well as preserve the ecosystem for future generations. The Tsavo research agenda is long term and will eventually solicit the assistance of local community leaders in presenting data of past and current pastoral lifeways to the international donors and government officials who design land management policies. However, funds for the current project will be used to build the dataset of prehistoric pastoral adaptations and will be presented in Wright's upcoming doctoral dissertation, peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Future efforts to broaden the scope of presentation to the American and international public will be augmented by the research undertaken in this year's project.