Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Lithic Minimalization And Ecological Risk

该项目评估了气候变化在小型工具技术发展中的作用。在智人社会中，小工具技术是一种新颖的周期性特征。纳米技术已经彻底改变了生物医学科学、工程学和计算机系统，现在被认为是“数字时代”的标志。然而，生产小型工具的做法早在10万多年前就出现在非洲和欧亚大陆。这些工具被称为微石。考古学家将微石器与一些独特的人类行为联系起来，如合成工具（如抛射武器）的生产、生态位的构建、广泛的社会网络和人类的全球分散。人类学家很早就认识到微石器技术与生态风险之间的联系，或者由于从环境中恢复能量不足而导致的经济损失的频率和严重程度。工具箱微岩化过程作为生态风险响应的长期比较研究受到微岩化定义变量的阻碍；微石如何形成的不确定性；缺乏关于微石制作方法如何在文化上传播的数据。该项目将采用比较技术方法，与丰富的南部非洲MIS 2（约29 - 12 ka）考古记录进行比较，以解决这些障碍。首先，它将建立定义微石的统计指南，以克服它们的可变定义。其次，它将从硅质岩石和石英矿物的实验中获得详细的技术信息，以比较两种主要的微岩屑生产策略：双极和徒手还原。第三，它将追踪这些生产策略的文化传播证据，使用核心修饰和薄片形态的属性来表明石制过程与产品复制。技术数据将与现代气候、古环境和空间数据相结合，以评估生态风险在非洲南部吸收和传播微岩石技术方面的作用。这些关系将在三个南部非洲岩石避难所的石器上进行评估：Sehonghong， Ntloana T'oana和Boomplaas。南部非洲MIS 2考古记录具有独特的定位，可以为世界其他地区类似的微石器技术系统的运作提供见解，从而更广泛地了解人类行为进化。迅速的气候变化是过去和现在全人类共同关注的问题。虽然气候变化对我们未来的影响尚未确定，但我们晚更新世的祖先如何应对气候变化是一个刻在石头上的故事。我们未来的生存取决于对这个故事的理解。

This project evaluates the role of climatic variability in the evolution of small tool technologies. Small tool technologies are a novel and cyclical feature in Homo sapiens societies. Nanotechnologies such as have revolutionized biomedical sciences, engineering and computer systems are now considered hallmarks of the "digital age." Yet, the practice of producing small tools emerged in African and Eurasia over 100 000 years ago. These tools are known as microliths. Archaeologists link microliths to such distinctive human behaviors as the production of composite tools (e.g. projectile weapons), the construction of ecological niches, extensive social networking, and global human dispersals. Anthropologists have long recognized a link between microlithic technologies and ecological risk, or the frequency and severity of economic loss due to insufficient recovery of energy from their environment. Long-term comparative research on processes of toolkit microlithization as a response to ecological risk is hampered by variable definitions for microliths; uncertainty about how microliths were made; and a lack of data on how microlith production methods were culturally transmitted. This project will use a comparative technological approach to the rich southern African MIS 2 (c. 29 - 12 ka) archaeological record to address these obstacles. First, it will establish statistical guidelines for defining microliths to overcome their variable definitions. Second, it will obtain detailed technological information from experiments on siliceous rocks and quartz minerals to compare two primary microlith production strategies: bipolar and freehand reduction. Third, it will track evidence for the cultural transmission of these production strategies using attributes of core modification and flake morphology to indicate lithic process vs. product copying. Technological data will be combined with modern climatic, paleoenvironmental and spatial data to assess the role of ecological risk in the uptake and spread of microlithic technologies in southern Africa. These relationship will be assessed on stone tools at three southern African rockshelters: Sehonghong, Ntloana T'oana and Boomplaas. The southern African MIS 2 archaeological record is uniquely positioned to offer insights into the operation of analogous microlithic technological systems in other areas of the world, and thus human behavioral evolution more broadly. Rapid climate change is a concern shared by all of humanity past and present. Although the role of climate change in our future is yet to be determined, how our late Pleistocene ancestors dealt with climate change is a story written in stone. Our future survival depends on understanding this story.