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

通过对考古遗址中的动物骨骼进行分析，研究生物体如何石化的化石学已经成为重建古代人类生活方式的关键。古人类学家通过利用墓葬人类学分析，能够破译遗址上骨骼堆积的来源，并为评估早期人类的狩猎和拾取活动、他们的饮食以及他们从非洲迁徙到欧亚大陆时对技能和技术的利用提供了相关证据。人类学研究古代骨骼，以推断对它们产生修改的过程，但如果没有良好记录的现代参考标本，这永远不可能进行，这些标本明确地将独特的骨骼修改与造成它们的特定因素联系起来。该项目将完成近4000个不可替代的蚕丝标本的准备工作，以供史密森学会新的国家农学参考馆藏(NTRC)收藏。这些藏品是由在北美和非洲率先进行实验性、民族考古和景观规模的墓葬研究的调查人员积累的，考虑到目前的法律、政治、经济和生态环境，这些藏品是不能重建的。来自三大洲的研究人员已经利用这些收藏品来研究骨骼修改，这些收藏品的研究和教学价值将在他们在史密森博物馆进行管理后继续并加强；NTRC是全球第一个墓穴分类学储存库，将吸引美国和国际古人类学和古生物学研究人员。调查人员将准备这些收藏品，以满足NTRC在加州大学圣克鲁斯分校符合联邦标准的文件和虫害预防方面的严格标准。通过该大学的实习计划，本科生的密集参与将提供宝贵的培训和基本生物收藏的实践经验，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.