Integrating geochemistry and ethnography to understand modern and ancient ochre use

社会、行为和经济科学理事会提供博士后研究金，为最近的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并在本科和研究生培训之外拓宽他们的科学视野。博士后奖学金还旨在帮助新的科学家指导他们的研究工作，跨越传统的学科领域，并利用独特的研究资源，地点和设施，包括在国外的地点。这个博士后奖学金支持一个新兴的跨学科学者研究从石器时代考古遗址的赭石颜料。了解古代象征意义的潜在意义和意义，已被加强了新的地球化学技术的来源研究赭石，特别是最低限度的破坏性微量元素指纹。这项研究建立在这些方法的基础上，通过调整铁，锶，铅稳定同位素分析，以地质资源所使用的传统社会在肯尼亚今天，赭石文物和岩石艺术涂料样品。多同位素分析可以提高物源识别的准确性，也有助于我们理解赭石存款形成的地质机制。最后，目前使用赭石的土著居民提供的信息将使我们能够更多地了解他们的颜料来源偏好，原材料选择标准，颜料制备技术以及与地质来源，岩石艺术图像和着色文物相关的象征意义。对现代赭石的使用及其意义的进一步理解将为人类从石器时代到今天的象征演变提供新的线索。用符号传达信息和身份是我们这个物种的基本属性。人类使用红色和黄色的赭石颜料作为象征性的表达已经有几十万年了。然而，涉及这些铁基颜料的岩石艺术和其他实践在现代还没有得到充分研究。因此，对这种迅速消失的文化遗产形式的研究对于理解象征主义的起源至关重要。该项目将考古学、人种学和地球化学结合起来，调查赭石的使用情况。首先，将通过与现代岩画画家的合作，确定最近的岩画遗址和用于颜料的赭石矿床。然后将使用地球化学技术来描述赭石矿床的特征，并将其与岩石艺术遗址的油漆样品和考古遗址的赭石文物进行匹配。这种方法将有助于验证从人种学信息中识别的岩画颜料的来源。该项目将改进可用于赭石颜料和其他含铁材料的破坏性最小的分析方法。改进确定赭石颜料地质来源的方法对确定被掠夺的遗产项目、文物和制止危及有形文化和助长世界各地冲突的非法文物贸易具有重要意义。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports a rising interdisciplinary scholar studying ochre pigments from Stone Age archaeological sites. Understanding the potential significance and meaning of ancient symbolism has been enhanced by novel geochemical techniques for provenance studies of ochre, particularly minimally destructive trace element fingerprinting. This study builds on these methods by adapting iron, strontium, and lead stable isotope analysis to geologic sources used by traditional societies in Kenya today, and to ochre artifacts and rock art paint samples. Multi-isotope analysis can improve the accuracy of provenance identification, and also contribute to our understanding of the geologic mechanisms of ochre deposit formation. Finally, information provided by indigenous people who currently use ochre will allow us to learn more about their pigment source preferences, criteria for raw material selection, techniques of pigment preparation, and symbolic meanings associated with geologic sources, rock art images, and pigmented artifacts. Enhanced understanding of modern ochre use and its meanings will shed new light on the evolution of human symbolism from the Stone Age to present day.Communicating information and identity with symbols is an essential attribute of our species. Humans have used red and yellow ochre pigments for symbolic expression for hundreds of thousands of years. However, rock art and other practices involving these iron-based pigments are understudied in the modern era. Research on this rapidly vanishing form of cultural heritage is thus critical to understanding the origins of symbolism. This project bridges archaeology, ethnography, and geochemistry to investigate ochre use. First, recent rock art sites and the ochre deposits used for pigments will be identified through collaboration with modern rock art painters. Geochemical techniques will then be used to characterize the ochre deposits, and to match them to paint samples from rock art sites and ochre artifacts from archaeological sites. This approach will facilitate verification of the sources of rock art pigments identified from ethnographic information. This project will refine minimally destructive analytical methods that can be used for ochre pigments and other iron-containing materials. Improving methods to determine geologic sources of ochre pigments has significant implications for identifying looted heritage items, forgeries, and for stemming the illicit antiquities trade that endangers tangible culture and fuels conflict around the world.