Dissertation: The Late Mesolithic Puzzle: Population Decline or Settlement Reconfiguraion?

在Michael Jochim博士的指导下，Susan Harris女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她的研究目标是了解德国西南部中石器时代人口规模的变化。大约10,500年前，在冰盖向北撤退后，石器时代的采集者在欧洲大部分地区开发了新型的“微石器”石器，并将他们的重点从狩猎大型动物(随着冻土带/草原让位于北方的森林，大型动物的数量减少)转向较小的物种。考古学家认为，这种特殊的适应方式在新石器时代的革命中达到了顶峰，在这场革命中，动植物首次被驯化。在中石器时代，人口明显增加，这对可用的食物来源造成了压力，从而为农业创新奠定了基础。在这种广泛的背景下，德国西南部是一个例外，因为显然一些地区在中石器时代晚期被遗弃，而另一些地区的人口减少了。哈里斯女士希望确定这种模式是否真的存在。由于该地区的大多数研究人员都专注于挖掘得很好的组合，而忽略了更丰富的地表遗址，哈里斯女士将分析这一未得到充分利用的数据类别。她指出，由于很难将这些材料分配给时间段，因此对它们的关注相对较少。以中石器晚期为特征的微石器类型通常只形成一小部分组合，因此，她认为，相关的地表遗址可能不被识别。在前期工作中，她研究了来自安全分层遗址的年代良好的材料，并认为中石器时代早期和晚期不仅可以通过类型学来区分，还可以通过制造工具的技术来区分。这些技术标准可以应用于缺乏诊断工具类型的站点。在国家科学基金会的支持下，她将进一步完善这种分析方法。然后，她将进行一项调查，以补充该地区以前的工作，并对她和其他人收集的地点进行分类，将它们分配到时间段。有了这些数据，她将根据年龄和微生境绘制遗址分布图，以确定密度和随时间的跟踪变化。中石器时代为新石器时代革命和复杂社会的兴起奠定了基础。出于这个原因，这是一个重要的科学研究领域，哈里斯女士的工作不仅将揭示一个异常地理区域，而且有望提供一种更普遍使用的分析方法。它还将帮助培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Michael Jochim, MS Susan Harris will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. The goal of her research is to understand changes in population size during the Mesolithic period in Southwestern Germany. Approximately 10,500 years ago, after the northward retreat of the ice sheets Stone Age foragers across most of Europe developed new types of "microlithic" stone tools and shifted their focus from hunting large animals (which decreased in number as tundra/grassland gave way to boreal forests) to smaller species. Archaeologists believe that the specialized adaptations which developed culminated in the Neolithic Revolution in which plants and animals were first domesticated. During the Mesolithic population apparently increased and this put stress on available food sources thus setting the stage for agricultural innovation. Within this broad context Southwestern Germany stands as an anomaly because apparently some areas were abandoned and others evidence decreased population during Late Mesolithic times. MS Harris wishes to determine whether this pattern is, in fact, real. Because most researchers in this region have focused on well excavated assemblages and ignored more abundant surface sites, MS Harris will analyze this under-utilized data class. She notes that relatively little attention has been paid to these materials because of the difficulties in assigning them to time period. The microlithic tool types which characterize the Late Mesolithic normally form only a small percentage of assemblages and thus, she believes, relevant surface sites may go unrecognized. In preliminary work she has studied well dated materials from securely stratified sites and believes that the Early and Late Mesolithic can be distinguished not only by typology but also be the technology used to manufacture tools. These technological criteria can be applied to sites lacking in diagnostic tool types. With National Science Foundation support she will further refine this analytic approach. She will then conduct a survey to complement prior work in the region and classify sites collected by herself as well as others to assign them to time period. With these data she will then plot site distributions by age and microhabitat to determine density and trace changes over time.The Mesolithic sets the stage for the Neolithic Revolution and the rise of complex society. For this reason it is an important area for scientific research and MS Harris work will not only shed light on one anomalous geographic region but also, hopefully, provide an analytic approach of more general use. It will also assist in training a promising young scientist.