Landscape Successions and Traces of Oldowan Hominid Land Use at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

在美国国家科学基金会的主要支持下，Robert Blumenschine博士、Fidelis Masao博士和Charles Peters博士将领导一个国际多学科团队，继续对坦桑尼亚奥杜威峡谷的原始人类行为进行长期研究。奥杜威峡谷保存着世界上最丰富的最早的奥多维石器工业记录，地质沉积物中保存着190万至160万年前的丰富脊椎动物化石。这些石器和带有石器屠宰痕迹的骨骼化石为奥杜威时代奥杜威地区湖盆中的原始人的饮食、觅食策略和技术活动提供了证据。这些原始人类活动的考古遗迹零星地分布在一个约1000平方公里的地区。400平方公里，提供了一个不寻常的机会，了解人类适应不同的环境条件内的湖盆的性质。当充分发展时，这种理解将使我们能够评估最初选择人类对技术和食肉动物的不寻常依赖的生态因素。为了实现这一目标，我们需要更详细地重建史前奥杜威湖盆中奥杜威原始人所占据的景观。重建工作将由一个在地质年代学、地层学、沉积学、孢粉学、植物植硅体、大型植物化石、稳定同位素地球化学和小型哺乳动物埋藏学方面具有个人专长的小组进行。将在两个为期七周的田间季节收集样本，在美国的专业实验室进行分析，欧洲，坦桑尼亚和南非。景观重建将首先集中在冲积扇和湖边缘设置的东部部分的湖盆，我们已经产生了一个大的景观考古样本和各种古环境指标。在我们建立地层和年龄控制之后，这些景观重建和额外考古发掘的技术将扩展到古奥杜威盆地的西部。将利用最先进的制图和测量级全球定位系统和光电全站仪设备，对考古和古环境样本进行精确的三维定位控制。我们的工作旨在了解盆地东部和西部的景观和人科动物的土地利用相关的反复灾难性的火山活动，似乎影响东部盆地最严重的生态对比，在许多情况下完全。国家科学基金会对该项目的一小部分但很重要的支持将用于帮助坦桑尼亚继续发展其考古和古生物学研究的设施和科学人员。将与坦桑尼亚文物股合作，改善奥杜威峡谷的实验室和永久研究营地。化石和人工制品的储存能力仍然在阿鲁沙的研究人员与坦桑尼亚国家博物馆合作建立的实验室中。坦桑尼亚学生和实地助理将继续接受实地和实验室技术培训。这些努力对于奥杜瓦伊峡谷的长期研究可行性和保护至关重要，坦桑尼亚人需要设施和训练有素的工作人员来领导考古研究和管理考古收藏品。

With primary support from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Robert Blumenschine, Fidelis Masao, and Charles Peters will lead an international and multidisciplinary team to continue their long-term research on ancestral human (hominid) behavior at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Olduvai Gorge preserves among the world's richest records of the earliest, Oldowan, stone tool industry and abundant vertebrate fossils in geological deposits dated between 1.9 and 1.6 million years ago. The stone artifacts, and fossil bones bearing butchery marks made by the stone tools, provide evidence for the diet, foraging tactics and technological activities of hominids in the lake basin that occupied the Olduvai area during Oldowan times. These archaeological traces of hominid activity are distributed patchily within an area of ca. 400 km2, providing an unusual opportunity to understand the nature of hominid adaptations to different environmental conditions within the lake basin. When fully developed, this understanding will allow us to assess the ecological factors that initially selected for humankind's unusual dependence on technology and carnivory. In order to accomplish this goal, we require a more detailed reconstruction of the landscapes occupied by Oldowan hominids in the prehistoric Olduvai lake basin. The reconstruction will be made by a team with individual expertise in geochronology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, palynology, plant phytoliths, marcro-plant fossils, stable isotopic geochemistry and small mammal taphonomy. Samples will be collected during two seven-week field seasons for analysis in specialized laboratories in the U.S., Europe, Tanzania, and South Africa. Landscape reconstructions will focus initially on the alluvial fan and lake margin settings of the eastern portion of the lake basin, in which we have already produced a large landscape archaeological sample and diverse paleoenvironmental indicators. These techniques of landscape reconstruction and additional archaeological excavations will be extended to the western portion of paleo-Olduvai Basin after we have established stratigraphic and age controls. Precise three-dimensional locational control of the archaeological and paleoenvironmental samples will be maintained using state-of-the-art mapping-level and survey-level global positioning system and optoelectronic total station equipment. Our work is designed to understand the ecological contrasts between the eastern and western portions of the basin in landscapes and hominid land use related to the repeated catastrophic volcanism that appears to have affected the eastern basin most severely, and in many cases exclusively. A small but important portion of NSF support for the project will be used to help Tanzania continue to develop its facilities and scientific personnel for archaeological and paleontological research. Improvements will be made to the laboratory and permanent research camp at Olduvai Gorge in cooperation with the Tanzanian Antiquities Unit. The storage capacity for fossil and artifact remains in the laboratory established by the researchers in Arusha in cooperation with the Tanzania National Museums. Tanzanian students and field assistants will continue to receive training in field and laboratory techniques. These efforts are critical to the long-term research viability and conservation of Olduvai Gorge, for which Tanzanians require facilities and well-trained staff to lead archaeological research and to manage archaeological collections.