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

在国家科学基金会通过考古学和物理人类学计划“高风险”奖提供的支持下，德克萨斯州A M大学的Sheela Athreya博士将对印度西部的下Narmada山谷进行考古学和古生物学勘探。古人类学数据表明，解剖学上的现代人类最早出现在10万年前的非洲，最终他们的后代从非洲扩展到整个有人居住的世界。他们可能取代了这些地区先前的“原始人”居民，大多数科学家认为这两个群体之间几乎没有发生过任何混合。虽然解剖学上的现代人类的起源地区已经相当确定，但他们在非洲以外的非凡扩张发生的路线存在很大争议，他们遵循的路径是未知的。有两种散布模式，一种是向北穿过近东，另一种是沿着沿海路线向东进入印度，然后环绕印度。因为解剖学上的现代人类出现在澳大利亚。5万年前的沿海迁移并非不合理。Athreya博士认为，这样的迁移将穿越印度西部沿海的下纳尔默达山谷，因此她建议在该地区进行一次调查，以寻找化石遗迹。她将：确定纳尔默达河谷下游考古文物的密度和分布;确定其可能的来源，确定地点是否相对未受干扰;确定可能有良好动物保护或人类活动证据以及可能保存化石材料的地点;最后通过一系列地球化学技术确定地点的日期。在项目实施过程中，将对五个地点进行深入调查。

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.