Middle Paleolithic Landscape Use in the High Desert of Middle Egypt

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Deborah Olszewski博士将带领一个考古学家和地质学家团队进行为期两年的考古调查和阿拜多斯（埃及中部）西部高沙漠景观形成过程的研究项目，主要集中在早更新世早期的材料上。 这是一个重要的研究领域，因为它是在这段时间（约。10万年前），第一批解剖学上的现代人可能离开撒哈拉以南非洲，去殖民旧世界的其他地方，尼罗河走廊代表了一条，很可能是这种传播发生的路线。虽然这项研究的目的不是记录这种传播，但该项目将提供有关在这段时间内这些景观使用方式的新的重要数据。 这是理解现代人类传播的关键一步，也是本项目的主要智力价值所在。此前在埃及中部的高沙漠地区的研究几乎是不存在的，已经完成的有限调查也没有系统性。 然而，该团队在那里的初步工作表明，它具有相当大的考古潜力。在他们开发的方法的基础上，个人团队将详细记录人工制品的出现，并收集和分析在那里发现的石器。 对高沙漠景观演变的研究将包括对排水模式和形式的分析，以便更好地了解过去50万年前改变高原表面的过程。该项目的基本目标包括收集位于研究区的层状洞穴，岩石掩体和第四纪春季碳酸盐岩中的古气候和年代学数据;以及更全面地了解高沙漠中的石器技术。 最终目标是重建中埃及高沙漠的景观使用，包括测试其使用与尼罗河谷适当的两个模型。就其更广泛的影响而言，该项目的结果不仅适用于研究区域，而且还将填补我们对埃及旧石器时代事件的理解的主要空白，迄今为止，这些事件一直集中在绿洲上，尼罗河流域和东部山区。此外，它将建立在一般考古景观研究和景观形成及其对场地形成的影响的方法基础上。它还将为许多研究生和本科生提供实地培训，并通过维护项目网站（www.oldstoneage.com），在可理解的背景下向普通公众提供工作结果。

With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Deborah Olszewski will lead a team of archaeologists and geologists on a two-year project of archaeological survey and study of landscape formation processes of the high desert west of Abydos (Middle Egypt), focusing primarily on the materials from the early Upper Pleistocene. This is an important area of research, since it is during this time (ca. 100,000 years ago) that the first anatomically modern humans presumably left subSaharan Africa to colonize the rest of the Old World, and the Nile corridor represents one, and quite probably the, route by which this dispersal took place. While the goal of this research is not to document that spread, this project will provide new and important data on the ways in which these landscapes were used during that time interval. This is a crucial step in understanding the spread of modern humans, and one that forms the primary intellectual merit of this project.Prior research in the high desert of Middle Egypt is virtually non-existent, and the limited surveys that have been done have not been systematic. However, preliminary work there by this team has shown that it has considerable archaeological potential. Building on a methodology developed by them, teams of individuals will make detailed records of artifact occurrences and collect and analyze the stone tools found there. Study of landscape evolution in the high desert will include analyses of drainage pattern and form in order to better understand the processes that have altered the plateau surface over the last 500,000 years ago. The fundamental goals of this project include collection of paleoclimatic and chronological data available at stratified caves, rockshelters, and Quaternary spring carbonates located in the study area; and development of a more comprehensive understanding of the stone tool technology present in the high desert. The ultimate goal is to reconstruct landscape use in the Middle Egyptian high desert, including the testing of two models of its use vs. that of the Nile Valley proper.In terms of its broader impacts, the results of this project will be applicable not only to the study area, but will also fill in major gaps to our understanding of the Paleolithic occurrences of Egypt, which heretofore have been concentrated on oases, the Nile valley proper, and in the mountain areas to the east. Moreover, it will build on methodologies that are of use to archaeological landscape studies in general and landscape formation and its effects on site formation. It will also provide field training for many graduate and undergraduate students, and provide results of the work to the lay public, in a context that is understandable, through the maintenance of the project website (www.oldstoneage.com).