Preparation of Two Taphonomic Reference Collections for Deposit in the National Taphonomic Reference Collection, Smithsonian

埋藏学是一门研究生物如何变成化石的学科，通过对考古遗址中动物骨骼的分析，它已经成为重建古代人类生活方式的关键。通过地语学分析，古人类学家能够破译遗址中骨骼积累的来源，并为评估早期人类的狩猎和食腐活动、他们的饮食以及他们从非洲迁移到欧亚大陆时对技能和技术的利用提供相关证据。地形学研究古代骨骼，以推断对它们产生修饰的过程，但如果没有充分记录的现代参考标本，将独特的骨骼修饰与造成它们的特定因素明确联系起来，这一研究就永远无法进行。该项目将完成近4000个不可替代的地语学标本的准备工作，用于史密森学会新的国家地语学参考馆藏（NTRC）的管理。这些藏品是由在北美和非洲率先进行实验、民族考古和景观规模地语学研究的研究人员积累起来的，鉴于当前的法律、政治、经济和生态环境，这些藏品无法重建。来自三大洲的研究人员已经利用这些藏品来研究骨骼修饰，这些藏品对研究和教学的价值将在史密森尼博物馆展出后继续加强；NTRC是全球第一个分类库，将吸引美国和国际古人类学家和古生物学家。调查人员将在加州大学圣克鲁斯分校符合联邦政府规定的设施中，准备符合NTRC严格的文件和害虫预防标准的藏品。通过大学的实习计划，本科生的密集参与将提供宝贵的培训和实践经验，为美国联邦研究基础设施的发展做出贡献。

Taphonomy, the study of how organisms fossilize, has emerged as pivotal to reconstructing ancient human lifeways, through analysis of animal bones from archaeological sites. Using taphonomic analysis, paleoanthropologists are able to decipher the source of bone accumulations at sites and provide evidence relevant to assessment of the hunting and scavenging activities of early hominins, their diet, and their utilization of skills and technologies when they migrated out of Africa and into Eurasia.Taphonomy studies ancient bones to infer the processes that produced modifications to them, but this could never proceed without well-documented, modern reference specimens that definitively link unique bone modifications to the specific agents inflicting them. This project will accomplish preparation of nearly 4000 irreplaceable taphonomic specimens for curation in the Smithsonian Institution's new National Taphonomic Reference Collection (NTRC). These collections, accumulated by investigators who pioneered experimental, ethno-archaeological, and landscape-scale taphonomic research in North America and Africa, cannot be reconstituted, given current legal, political, economic, and ecological circumstances. Researchers from three continents have already utilized the collections to study bone modifications, and the value of the collections to research and teaching will continue and strengthen following their curation at the Smithsonian; the NTRC is the first taphonomy repository globally and will be a magnet for US and international paleoanthropological and paleontological researchers. The investigators will prepare the collections to meet the NTRC's strict standards for documentation and pest prophylaxis at the federally-compliant facilities at University of California, Santa Cruz. Intensive involvement of undergraduate students through the university's internship program will provide invaluable training and hands-on experience with essential biological collections in contributing to US federal research infrastructure development.