DDIG: Analysis of Faunal Remains from the Middle Pleistocene Site of Orgnac 3, France

在理查德·克莱因（Richard Klein）博士的指导下，杰森·刘易斯（Jason Lewis）将分析法国奥纳克3号洞穴遗址考古发掘的动物遗骸。该遗址距今约35万至29万年前，出土了非常大的石器制品和动物骨骼组合，以及7颗人类牙齿化石。在它的部分沉积历史中，有机物3是一个洞穴，而在另一部分沉积历史中，它是一个地陷洞。该遗址保存了在漫长的中更新世时期的短时间内的大量样本。它包含木炭/煤烟透镜和烧焦的骨头，被解释为壁炉和人工制品和骨头的积累，周围的天然岩石可能代表住宅结构的基础。由于这些原因，有机物3的材料有助于回答关于中更新世中晚期人类古生态的许多问题。古人类学的许多工作都集中在人类古生态的一个特定方面，即生存策略。人们什么时候开始获取肉类和其他动物组织，无论是通过食腐还是狩猎，以及人类的生存策略是如何随着时间的推移而变化的，仍然是激烈争论的话题。对于考古学和古生物学记录来说，不同的人类种群觅食的方式可能会有什么不同，以及这些差异在进化上的重要性，都是重要的问题。考虑到更新世中期和晚期，这一点尤其正确，当时不同的人类物种生活在不同的大陆上，但到更新世末期，只剩下一个物种：智人。为了达到理解整个人类历史中生存策略变化的最终目标，我们必须首先对样本动物群是如何经历几个阶段的进行有力的、科学的重建，在这些阶段中，原始人类活动或自然过程可能改变了它们的组成。本项目采用这样一种整体的方法来记录有机3区人类居民的尸体获取和加工行为，并研究这些行为在整个人类物种进化过程中是如何变化的。一旦有机物3人的尸体获取和加工行为被表征出来，就可以与欧洲和非洲的其他中更新世遗址进行比较，以阐明这些行为是如何随着时间和空间的变化而变化的。除了史前考古学家感兴趣的研究问题外，该项目还将产生更广泛的影响，为研究生培训提供援助，并加强美国和法国各机构之间的合作关系，特别是斯坦福大学与陶塔维尔的欧洲<s:1> <s:1>研究中心和巴黎的人类<s:1>研究中心之间的合作关系。这项工作将提高人们对法国最古老、最大的人类化石遗址之一的认识。此外，这里所产生的主要数据将提供给欧洲<s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1>)研究中心，供它们在自己的研究、策展规划和教学发展中使用（在它们的教材中以及在毗邻的欧洲<s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1>）。

Under the supervision of Dr. Richard Klein, Jason Lewis will analyze faunal remains from archaeological excavations of the French cave site of Orgnac 3. This site, dating from between ~350,000to ~290 000 years ago, has yielded very large stone artifact and animal bone assemblages and seven fossil human teeth. For part of its depositional history, Orgnac 3 was a cave, and for another, it was a sink-hole. The site preserves large samples from short time periods within the long Middle Pleistocene interval. It contains charcoal/sooty lenses with burnt bones that have been interpreted as hearths and accumulations of artifacts and bones surrounded by natural rocks that may represent the bases of dwelling structures. For these reasons the Orgnac 3 materials lend themselves to answering many questions about human paleoecology during the middle and late Middle Pleistocene.Much work in paleoanthropology has focused on one particular aspect of human paleoecology, that of subsistence strategy. When people started acquiring meat and other animal tissues, whether through scavenging or hunting, and how human subsistence strategies have changed over time, remain hotly debated topics. How different human populations might have foraged differently, and the evolutionary import of those differences, are important questions to ask of the archaeological and paleontological records. This is especially true when considering the Middle and Late Pleistocene, when different human species lived on different continents, but by the end of the Pleistocene, only one species remained: Homo sapiens. To reach the ultimate goal of understanding changes in subsistence strategy throughout human history, one must begin with a robust, scientific reconstruction of how a sample faunal assemblage passed through several stages in which hominid activity or natural processes could have altered its composition. This project adopts such a holistic approach to document the carcass acquisition and processing behaviors of the human inhabitants of Orgnac 3 and to examine how these behaviors have changed throughout the evolution of the human species. Once the carcass acquisition and processing behaviors of the Orgnac 3 people have been characterized, these can be compared to other Middle Pleistocene sites in Europe and Africa in order to elucidate how these behaviors have changed through time and across space.Beyond research questions of interest to prehistoric archaeologists, this project will have a broader impact by providing assistance in graduate student training and strengthening collaborative relationships between institutions in US and France, specifically those between Stanford University and the Centre Européen de Recherches Préhistoriques in Tautavel and Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris. This work will increase awareness of one of the oldest and largest fossil human sites in France. Furthermore, the primary data generated here will be made available to the Centre Européen de Recherches Préhistoiriques, for them to use in their own research, curation planning, and pedagogical development (in their educational materials and in the adjoining Centre Européen de Préhistoire ).