Dissertation Research: Zooarchaeology of Bed II, Olduval Gorge

在Robert Blumenschine博士的指导下，Amy Cushing女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将在坦桑尼亚的阿鲁沙进行实验室分析，并检查Blumenschine博士和他的同事在Olduvai峡谷进行的多年研究项目中收集的大约8000块脊椎动物化石。该团队专注于下II层一个明确的地层水平，其历史可以追溯到大约150万年前。它已被取样，并在300平方公里的范围内进行了测试挖掘。包括六个不同的古地理带的区域。挖掘了71条壕沟。库欣女士将首先将骨骼识别为分类单元，如果可能的话，识别为物种。她将进行地形学分析，以确定水和食肉动物活动等自然因素如何影响这些材料。在这些力量得到控制后，她将寻找人类引起的行为，这将阐明早期人类的行为。初步研究表明，许多标本是被人类敲击打碎的，这表明它们要么是狩猎，要么是觅食。库欣女士将：1；测试来自个别沟渠的动物数据的代表性，这些沟渠含有高密度的遗骸（可以称为“遗址”），而不是景观样本。2. 确定古人类倾向于在古奥杜瓦伊景观的哪些栖息地进行尸体加工活动；3. 通过确定哪些栖息地在可用的胴体丰度方面具有更高的生产力，确定这些动物资源在古景观上聚集的位置；4. 了解动物群落性质的变化如何影响早期人类的行为。大多数考古学家从大量集中的骨头和其他文化材料提供人类存在的明确证据的“遗址”中收集和挖掘。然而，这样的事件构成了一个连续体的一端，只关注“遗址”忽略了在许多景观中常见的密度较小的分散和斑块。在奥杜瓦伊峡谷进行了几十年的研究，考古学家们不知道这些遗址实际上有多大的代表性，也不知道以遗址为中心的考古学是如何影响我们对早期人类行为的理解的。Blumenschine项目是独一无二的，因为它收集了整个材料密度范围，MS Cushing的分析将允许跨跨度进行比较。这不仅将增加对奥杜瓦伊峡谷史前人类行为的了解，而且还将帮助考古学家改进他们收集和分析出土遗骸的技术。它还将帮助培训一名有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Robert Blumenschine, MS Amy Cushing will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will conduct laboratory analysis in Arusha Tanzania and examine the ca. 8,000 vertebrate fossils collected by Dr. Blumenschine and his colleagues in their multi-year ongoing research project at Olduvai Gorge. The team has focused on a single well defined stratigraphic horizon in lower Bed II which dates to ca. 1.5 million years ago. It has been sampled, and test excavations conducted across a 300 km .sq. area which includes six distinct paleogeographic zones. Seventy one trenches have been excavated. MS Cushing will first identify bones to taxon and, when possible, species. She will conduct a taphonomic analysis to determine how natural factors such as water and carnivore action have affected these materials. With these forces controlled, she will then search for human caused actions which will shed light on early hominid behavior. Preliminary study indicates that many of the specimens were broken by human percussion and this indicates either hunting or scavenging for food. Ms Cushing will: 1. test the representativeness of faunal data from individual trenches which contain high densities of remains ( and which could be called `sites`) as opposed to that of landscape samples. 2. determine in which habitats on the paleo-Olduvai landscape hominids preferred to carry out carcass processing activities; 3. identify where on the paleolandscape such animal resources were clustered by determining which habitats would have been more productive in terms of available carcass abundance; 4. understand how variation in the nature of animal communities affected early hominid behavior. Most archaeologists collect from and excavate `sites` where large concentrations of bone and other cultural materials provide clear cut evidence of a human presence. However such occurrences constitute one end of a continuum and a focus on `sites` alone ignores less dense scatters and patches of remains which are common on many landscapes. Such has been the case over several decades of research at Olduvai Gorge and archaeologists do not know how representative sites in fact are, or how site focused archaeology has biased our understanding of early human behavior. The Blumenschine project is unique because it has collected across the entire range of material densities and MS Cushing's analysis will allow a comparison across the span. It will not only increase understanding of prehistoric human behavior at Olduvai Gorge but also help archaeologists improve the techniques they use to collect and analyze excavated remains. It will also assist in training a promising young scientist.