Luminescence Dating of Middle Stone Age Sites in South Africa

该奖项为James Feathers博士提供资金，用于为华盛顿大学的热发光实验室购买设备，并分析一系列具有考古意义的样本。1996年初，费瑟斯博士在南非进行了地质实地考察，并从一系列含有豪威森的普特和中石器时代工业的遗址中收集了沉积物样本。由于这些物质超出了放射性碳测年的范围，并且位于沉积物中，不适合其他钾氩测年，因此它们的年龄非常不清楚。Feathers博士将利用热释光测年来解决这个问题。 人类学家想知道现代人类在什么时候、什么条件下首次出现，最近的化石和遗传证据指向撒哈拉以南非洲。然而，相关的原始人类遗骸极其稀少，这个问题仍然悬而未决。费瑟斯博士和其他考古学家注意到一种极不寻常的石器工业，这种工业出现的时间相对较短，可能与古生物学记录中解剖学上现代人类的第一个证据相吻合。它被称为Howieson的Poort，它包含了在南非以外地区没有出现的工具类型，并且在考古记录中很久以后才重新出现。在后一个时期，他们显然与解剖学上的现代人类有关。豪威森的波特和中石器时代的工业，无论是前和后，是非常糟糕的日期。费瑟博士的工作应该会改变这种状况。 热释光（TL）技术对考古学家具有重要的潜在意义，因为它可以确定放射性碳范围之外的材料类型和时间段。然而，这种方法还没有发展到足以应用于机械的基础上，在美国没有实验室专注于考古重要材料的热释光测年。羽毛博士的研究不仅对它所解决的考古问题很重要，而且对它的方法和基础设施的贡献也很重要。

This award provides funds for Dr. James Feathers to purchase equipment for the thermolumenescence laboratory at the University of Washington and to analyze a series of samples of archaeological significance. In early 1996 Dr. Feathers conducted geological fieldwork in South Africa and collected sediment samples from a series of sites which contain Howieson's Poort and Middle Stone Age industries. Because these materials lie beyond the range of radiocarbon dating and rest in sediments not amenable to other potassium-argon dating, their age is very poorly known. Dr. Feathers will utilize thermolumenescence dating to address this problem. Anthropologists want to know when, and in what conditions, anatomically and behaviorally modern humans first appeared and recent fossil and genetic evidence points to sub-Saharan Africa. However relevant hominid remains are extremely scarce and the question remains unsettled. Dr. Feathers and other archaeologists have noted an extremely unusual stone industry which appears for a relatively brief interval of time and which may be coincident with the first evidence of anatomically modern humans in the paleontological record. Known as the Howieson's Poort it contains types of tools which did not occur outside of South Africa and which reappear only much later in the archaeological record. In this latter period they are clearly associated with anatomically modern humans. The Howieson's Poort and the Middle Stone Age industry which both proceeds and follows it are very poorly dated. Dr. Feather's work should change this situation. The thermolumenescence (TL) technique is of great potential significance to archaeologists because it can date types of materials and time periods which lie beyond the scope of radiocarbon. However the approach is not developed enough to apply on a mechanistic basis and no laboratory in the United States has a focus on TL dating of archaeological significant materials. Dr. Feathers research is important not only for the archaeological question it addresses but also for its methodological and infrastructural contributions.