Excavation of Middle and Later Stone Age Sites at Erfkroon, South Africa

南非埃尔夫克伦中石器时代晚期遗址的发掘

• 批准号: 0918074
• 负责人: Charles Bousman
• 金额: $ 10.53万
• 依托单位: Texas State University - San Marcos
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0918074&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Excavation; Middle; Later; Stone; Age

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Britt Bousman and James Brink from Texas State University and a team of colleagues from American, British, South African and Australian universities and museums will conduct archaeological investigations at Erfkroon an archaeological site located in the western Free State of South Africa. The team brings together archaeologists, geologists, soil scientists, paleontologists, paleobotanists and dating experts to examine the evolution of modern human behavior and cognition during the Middle Stone Age period. By approximately 200,000 years ago anatomically modern humans had appeared in Africa, but 100,000 years passed before reliable evidence of modern human behavior is documented. Also, there appears to be a difference between events on the coast of Southern Africa and the interior grasslands with earlier evidence for modern human behavior along the coasts. This time lag and geographic discontinuity present a significant puzzle for paleoanthropologists. If human anatomy and cognition evolved together, why would there be such a vast disjunction between the development of anatomically modern humans and modern human behavior? These excavations promise to provide unique evidence of the transition to modern human behavior in the interior, a poorly studied region of Africa that could play a critical role for solving this puzzle. In order to address these disjunctions in human development, excavations in Middle and Late Pleistocene terrace deposits in the Modder River valley at Erfkroon will undertaken. Preliminary investigations demonstrate that Erfkroon can provide a highly detailed record, and this record can be compared to the much better known coastal regions of Southern Africa. The Erfkroon research will 1) excavate occupations dating to the Middle and Late Pleistocene spanning the last 165,000 years, 2) affix these occupations within a firm geochronological framework based on well stratified terrace deposits, 3) reconstruct past environments with geological, soils, phytolith, paleobotanical and stable isotope data, 4) analyze the faunal remains to determine the nature of animal exploitation and hunting preferences and methods, 5) document the nature of technological strategies during the MSA, and 6) integrate these various sources of evidence to assess the nature of human behavior and cognition during the period when modern humans first emerged in Africa. The Erfkroon excavations may provide critical information on the mode and tempo of human evolution during the Middle and Late Pleistocene period in Africa. The intellectual merit of this project rests on the testing of four specific models of human evolution and cognition. These models link or reject links between human cognition and anatomical evolution in early populations of Homo sapiens sapiens.The broader impacts of this study will address evolutionary questions of human behavior and cognition. These issues are significant to paleoanthropologists and evolutionary psychologists. South African, British and U.S. archaeology, geology and environmental sciences students will take part in this project. This will contribute directly to their training in their respective fields and dramatically increase our knowledge of modern human evolution in Southern Africa.

在国家科学基金会的资助下，德克萨斯州立大学的布里特·布斯曼博士和詹姆斯·布林克博士以及来自美国、英国、南非和澳大利亚大学和博物馆的一组同事将在南非自由州西部的一个考古遗址埃夫克伦进行考古调查。该团队汇集了考古学家，地质学家，土壤科学家，古生物学家，古植物学家和测年专家，以研究中石器时代现代人类行为和认知的演变。大约20万年前，非洲出现了解剖学意义上的现代人，但10万年后，现代人行为的可靠证据才被记录下来。此外，南部非洲海岸和内陆草原的事件之间似乎存在差异，这与沿海沿着现代人类行为的早期证据有关。这种时间上的滞后和地理上的不连续性给古人类学家带来了一个重大的难题。如果人类解剖学和认知共同进化，为什么解剖学上的现代人类和现代人类行为的发展之间会出现如此巨大的脱节？这些挖掘有望为内陆地区向现代人类行为的转变提供独特的证据，非洲内陆地区是一个研究不足的地区，可以在解决这个难题方面发挥关键作用。为了解决人类发展中的这些脱节问题，将在Erfkroon的Modder河谷进行中更新世和晚更新世阶地沉积物的挖掘。初步调查表明，埃夫克伦可以提供非常详细的记录，这一记录可以与南部非洲更知名的沿海地区进行比较。Erfkroon的研究将：1）挖掘跨越过去165，000年的中更新世和晚更新世的职业，2）将这些职业固定在基于分层阶地沉积物的坚定的地质年代学框架内，3）利用地质，土壤，植硅石，古植物学和稳定同位素数据重建过去的环境，4）分析动物群遗骸，以确定动物开发和狩猎偏好和方法的性质，5）记录MSA期间技术战略的性质，（6）综合这些不同的证据来源，以评估现代人类首次出现在非洲期间人类行为和认知的性质。Erfkroon的发掘可能提供有关非洲中更新世和晚更新世时期人类进化模式和克里思的关键信息。这个项目的智力价值在于对人类进化和认知的四个特定模型的测试。这些模型将人类认知与早期智人群体的解剖进化联系起来或拒绝联系。这项研究的更广泛影响将解决人类行为和认知的进化问题。这些问题对古人类学家和进化心理学家来说意义重大。南非、英国和美国的考古学、地质学和环境科学专业的学生将参加这个项目。这将直接有助于他们在各自领域的培训，并大大增加我们对南部非洲现代人类进化的了解。