The Middle Paleolithic of the Crimea

在国家科学基金会的支持和与乌克兰同事的密切合作下，安东尼·马克斯博士将在克里米亚进行考古工作。先前的挖掘已经证明了旧石器时代中期丰富的工业的存在，除了动物材料外，还包含人类遗骸。然而，这些遗址是许多年前挖掘出来的，使用的技术以今天的标准来看是不够的。马克斯博士和他的合作者将重新挖掘并研究其中的七个。特别是，他们将试图获得个别地层水平的绝对日期，并将采用一系列技术。其中包括对烧过的燧石和沉积物的热释光测年，铀系列测年，最后是对较年轻沉积物的放射性碳测年。除了获得确定年龄的样本外，挖掘还将有助于澄清地层问题，并获得大量动物和石器遗迹样本，这些样本将被分析以重建中旧石器时代的生活方式。考古和化石数据都表明，解剖学意义上的现代人最早出现在9万多年前的非洲。它们后来出现在近东，但直到大约4万年前，它们才在旧大陆的其他地方被发现。考古学家希望追踪这种传播，因为在世界不同地区的日期和运动模式已知之前，很难理解导致现代人类起源和传播的过程。众所周知，克里米亚有相关时期的重要化石遗址，但数据很少，收集得也很差。由于克里米亚位于通往近东的主要通道之一附近，因此值得调查。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将增加世界上一个重要而鲜为人知的地区的考古数据库。这将增加我们对现代人起源和传播的理解，并有助于乌克兰考古学家的培训。

With National Science Foundation support and in close collaboration with Ukrainian colleagues, Dr. Anthony Marks will conduct archaeological work in Crimea. Previous excavations have demonstrated the presence of rich Middle Paleolithic industries which contain human remains in addition to faunal materials. However these sites were excavated many years ago and employed techniques which are inadequate by present day standards. Dr. Marks and his collaborators will re-excavate and study seven of these. In particular they will attempt to obtain absolute dates for individual stratigraphic levels and will employ a range of techniques. These include thermolumenescent dating of both burned flint and sediment, uranium series dating and finally radiocarbon dating for younger deposits. In addition to obtaining samples for age determination, excavation will serve to clarify stratigraphic problems and to obtain large samples of faunal and lithic remains which will be analyzed to reconstruct Middle Paleolithic lifeways. Both archaeological and fossil data indicate that anatomically modern humans first appeared in Africa over 90,000 years ago. They later occur in the Near East but it is not until 40,000 or so years ago that they are found in the rest of the Old World. Archaeologists wish to trace this spread because until dates are available for different parts of the world and patterns of movement known, it is extremely difficult to understand the processes which lead to the origins and spread of modern humans. The Crimea is known to contain important fossil bearing sites from the relevant period but the data are scanty and poorly collected. Since Crimea lies near one of the major routes out of the Near East it is an area worthy of investigation. This research is important for several reasons. It will increase the archaeological data base for an important and little known region of the world. It will add to our understanding of the origin and spread of modern humans and assist in the training of Ukrainian archaeologists.