HRRA: Testing the Southern Dispersal Hypothesis: The Search for Late Pleistocene Hominin Occupation in the Lower Narmada Valley, Western India

来自德克萨斯农工大学的希拉·阿特里亚博士将在国家科学基金会的支持下，对印度西部的下纳尔马达山谷进行考古和古生物勘察。古人类学数据表明，解剖学上的现代人最早出现在10万年前的非洲，最终他们的后裔走出非洲，覆盖了整个有人居住的世界。他们很可能取代了这些地区以前的“原始人”居民，大多数科学家认为，这两个群体之间几乎没有混合。虽然从解剖学上讲，现代人的起源地区已经相当确定，但他们在非洲以外发生异常扩张的路线仍备受争议，他们所走的道路也是未知的。已经提出了两种扩散模式，一种是向北通过近东，另一种是沿沿海路线向东进入印度，然后绕过印度。因为解剖学上的现代人大约在5万年前出现在澳大利亚，所以沿海迁徙并不是不合理的。阿特里亚认为，这样的迁徙将穿越印度西部沿海的下纳尔马达山谷，因此她提议进行一项调查，在该地区寻找化石遗骸。她将：确定纳尔马达河谷下游考古文物的密度和分布；确定其可能的来源，确定当地是否相对未受干扰；确定可能有良好动物保护或人类活动证据和可能保存化石材料的遗址；最后通过一系列地球化学技术确定遗址的年代。在项目过程中，将对五个地点进行密集勘测。

With support from an National Science Foundation provided through an Archaeology and Physical Anthropology Programs "high risk" award, Dr. Sheela Athreya from Texas A&M University will conduct an archaeological and paleontological reconnaisance of the Lower Narmada Valley in Western India. Paleoanthropological data indicates that anatomically modern humans first emerged in Africa over 100,000 years ago and that eventually their descendents expanded out of Africa to cover the entire inhabited world. They likely replaced prior "hominid" inhabitants of these regions and most scientists believe that little if any intermixture occurred between these two groups. While the region of origin for anatomically modern humans is fairly well established, the route outside Africa by which their extraordinary expansion occurred is highly debated and the path which they followed is unknown. Two dispersal patterns have been proposed, on proceeds North through the Near East and a second follows a coastal route East into and then around India. Because anatomically modern humans appear in Australia by ca. 50,000 years ago a coastal migration is not unreasonable.Dr. Athreya believes that such a migration would cross the Lower Narmada Valley in western coastal India and she therefore proposes to conduct a survey to search for fossil remains in this region. She will: determine the density and distribution of archaeological artifacts in the lower Narmada Valley; locate their likely sources, determining if localities are relatively undisturbed; locate sites with a likelihood of having good faunal preservation or evidence of human activity and possible preservation of fossil material; and finally establish the dates for sites through a series of geochemical techniques. Five sites will be intensively surveyed over the course of the project.