Regional Open-Air Survey in the French Midi-Pyrenees

在国家科学基金会的支持下，玛格丽特·康基博士和她的同事将在法国南部的比利牛斯山脉地区进行一个考古实地考察季节。在过去的几年里，该小组进行了初步调查，并确定了大约16，000至13，000年前的抹大拉时代的表面材料。根据这些人工制品的分布，有可能重建史前定居模式以及整个景观中人员和活动的分布。在本项目期间，该小组将扩大这项工作，并对精心挑选的地区进行非常密集的调查。将进行有限的测试挖掘，以确定密封地层环境中的材料，并将继续进行湖泊取芯计划，以恢复花粉，从而可以重建过去的气候。 抹大拉人负责在拉斯科等地的洞穴壁画和美丽的雕刻骨板和雕像。这些人也是第一批专注于鱼类等生存资源的群体，这些行为奠定了导致植物和动物驯化的道路。虽然考古学家已经挖掘了超过世纪的抹大拉遗址，但几乎所有的研究都集中在洞穴和岩石掩体沉积物上，对其他居住环境知之甚少。根据现有的知识，不可能重建人口统计或定居模式，康基博士的研究重点是露天发生，旨在填补这一空白。比利牛斯山地区是她的作品既有洞穴壁画和岩石庇护所，她的工作将提供一个重要的对应这些。 旧石器时代晚期的人们装备了石器，依靠狩猎和采集资源，扩大了人类居住的环境范围，并能够在相对较高的海拔地区生存。康基博士和她的研究团队在这样一个领域工作，该项目将揭示人类适应性的极限。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Margaret Conkey and her colleagues will conduct one season of archaeological fieldwork in the Pyrenees region of southern France. For the last several years the group has conducted preliminary surveys and located surface material which date to Magdalenian times, about 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. Based on the distribution of such artifacts it is possible to reconstruct prehistoric settlement patterns and the distribution of people and activities across the landscape. During the current project the group will expand this work and carry out very intensive survey of carefully selected areas. Limited test excavations will be conducted to locate materials in sealed stratigraphic contexts and a program of lake coring will be continued to recover pollen which permits the reconstruction of past climates. Magdalenian peoples are responsible for the cave paintings at sites such as Lascaux and for beautiful carved bone plaques and figurines. These also were the first groups to concentrate on subsistence resources such as fish and these behaviors laid the path which led to the domestication of plants and animals. Although archaeologists have excavated Magdalenian sites for over a century, almost all research has focused on cave and rockshelter deposits and very little is known about other habitation contexts. On the basis of available knowledge it is not possible to reconstruct demography or settlement patterns and Dr. Conkey's research with its focus on open air occurrences is designed to fill this gap. The Pyrenees region is which she works has both cave paintings and rock shelters and her work will provide an important counterpart to these. Late Paleolithic peoples equipped with stone tools and dependent on hunted and gathered resources expanded the environmental range inhabited by humans and were able to survive at relatively high altitudes. Dr. Conkey and her research team work in such an area and the project will thus shed light on the limits of human adaptability.