Blue Highways: Evaluating Middle Stone Age Riverine-Based Foraging, Mobility, and Technology along the Trunk Tributaries of the Blue Nile

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，约翰·卡佩尔曼和劳伦斯·托德以及一个由美国和埃塞俄比亚科学家和学生组成的团队将在埃塞俄比亚西北部进行为期三年的考古、古生物学和地质研究。通过一系列有控制的发掘，该项目评估了生活在埃塞俄比亚西北高原低地斜坡上青尼罗河支流上游的中石器时代（MSA）人类适应了一种以河流为基础的觅食生活方式，主要是利用高度可预测的丰富的鱼类、软体动物和哺乳动物，这些鱼类、软体动物和哺乳动物在旱季季节性地集中在水坑周围。一旦当地的食物耗尽，沿着河道到新水坑的长途觅食就像旱季的“泵”一样，将MSA种群沿着河流虹吸出去。这些“蓝色高速公路”不仅提供了可预见的食物和淡水，而且从一个水坑到另一个水坑的流动将影响沿着尼罗河走廊向北的人口流动。在这个从未被研究过的地区调查考古遗址将增加对MSA行为的不断增长的知识体系。因为研究区域位于非洲之角，一个被假设为现代人类可能起源的地区之一，以及尼罗河走廊，一个潜在的迁徙路线，这些新数据将进一步测试和完善现代人类起源和迁徙的模型。这些集中挖掘的知识价值源于它们与人类起源的具体问题的相关性，这些问题与沉积学、地质年代学和古环境的更大研究相结合。这些数据综合起来，为本研究项目和更广泛的非洲古生态学问题提供了重要的信息。沉积序列的绝对定年将为这些遗址提供一个年代学，以便与其他MSA遗址的岩石组合和古生境重建进行比较。主要目的是构建这些MSA种群的古生态和古气候背景，以便更好地了解它们的行为曲目。这项研究将在几个方面产生更广泛的影响。首先，该项目汇集了来自美国和埃塞俄比亚的科学家和学生组成的研究伙伴关系，整合了一系列不同学科，包括考古学、体质人类学、古生物学、古植物学、同位素地球化学、沉积学、地质年代学，以及社区参与文化遗产管理和保护。第二，强调国际学生教育，培养跨学科的专业知识。它将开办一所野外学校，其课程包括地理信息系统和全球定位系统、动物识别、使用磨损、制图和挖掘技术的培训，并强调学生的研究。第三，该项目包括与当地和区域社区的教育外展，以促进利益相关者参与长期的文化和自然遗产管理和保护。第四，该项目与在该地区工作的政府和私人开发团体合作，以确保文化遗产得到尊重、管理和保护。该项目将帮助培训新一代埃塞俄比亚遗产管理专家。

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. John Kappelman and Lawrence Todd and a team of US and Ethiopian scientists and students will conduct three years of archaeological, paleontological, and geological research in northwestern Ethiopia. Through a series of controlled excavations, the project evaluates evidence that Middle Stone Age (MSA) humans living along the upper reaches of the Blue Nile River's tributaries on the lowland slope of Ethiopia's northwestern plateau were adapted to a riverine-based foraging lifestyle focused on the exploitation of highly predictable and abundant fish, mollusks, and mammals that were seasonally concentrated around waterholes during the dry season. Once local foods were depleted, longer distance foraging forays along the channel to new waterholes functioned as a dry season "pump" to siphon MSA populations out along the rivers. Not only would these "blue highways" have provided predictable foods and fresh water, but movements from one waterhole to another would have effected population movements northward along the Nile corridor. Investigating archaeological sites in this never before studied region will add to the growing body of knowledge about MSA behaviors. Because the research area is located in the Horn of Africa, a region hypothesized to be one of the places where modern humans possibly originated, and within the Nile corridor, a potential migratory route, these new data will further test and refine models of modern human origins and migration. The intellectual merit of these focused excavations derives from their relevance to specific questions about human origins integrated within a larger study of the sedimentology, geochronology, and paleoenvironments. Taken together these data provide information of significance both to this research program, and to broader issues of African paleoecology. Absolute dating of the sedimentary sequences will provide a chronology for these sites so that the lithic assemblages and paleohabitat reconstructions can be compared with those from other MSA sites. The primary objective is to frame the paleoecological and paleoclimatic context of these MSA populations for a better understanding of their behavioral repertoire.Broader impacts of the study will be realized on several fronts. First, the project brings together a team of scientists and students from the US and Ethiopia in a research partnership that integrates a diverse set of disciplines including archaeology, physical anthropology, paleontology, paleobotany, isotope geochemistry, sedimentology, geochronology, and community-based involvement in cultural heritage management and preservation. Second, the project emphasizes international student education to develop expertise in transdisciplinary studies. It will conduct a field school with a curriculum that includes training in GIS and GPS, faunal identification, use-wear, and mapping and excavation techniques, and emphasize student research. Third, the project includes educational outreach with the local and regional communities to develop stakeholder engagement in long term cultural and natural heritage management and preservation. And fourth, the project partners with governmental and private development groups working in the area in order to ensure that the cultural heritage is respected, managed, and preserved. The project will help train a new generation of Ethiopian heritage management specialists.