Dissertation Improvement Grant Proposal: An Actualistic and Stable Isotope Study of Three Modern Kenyan Communities Living near Lake Turkana

在John Harris博士的指导下，Purity Kiura女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她的项目是对肯尼亚北方图尔卡纳湖以东三个不同生存战略的人群（Dassanetch、Gabra和El-molo）的食物消费进行直接观察和稳定同位素分析，以进行年度周期研究。这项研究的最终目标是提供一个解释性的框架，以调查在过去的10,000年（全新世时期）居住在该地区的人们的生存策略和饮食。这三个现代群体与全新世的人没有直接的相似之处，但他们的饮食与先前研究人员在该地区提出的饮食相似。然而，如果通过直接观察，包括垃圾坑中丢弃的食物残留物的分析，以及通过研究现代人的稳定同位素特征，发现这些特征是离散的，那么就有可能在该地区的全新世记录中确定类似的生存策略。Kiura女士和她的现场助手将对人们的饮食行为（食物类型，加工，准备和分享）进行日常观察和采访，同时他们将记录人们在食品加工和消费活动中丢弃在垃圾坑中的食物残留物。对人们食用的动物的头发、骨头和牙齿以及这些动物食用的植物进行稳定的碳和氮同位素分析，以确定所食用的食物类型。此外，天文台亦会记录每日的天气观测资料（包括雨量、湿度、温度及风向），以提供区内的季节变化。这些资料除了可作为研究全新世人类生存策略的基础外，还具有广泛的意义。这些数据还将通过三个现代人群的年度周期提供关于饮食活动的新信息，这些人群的研究很少。对该地区的植物和动物了解甚少，因此该项目将为植物生理学家、植物学家、古生物学家和其他人提供非常重要的信息。每天的天气记录对所有对该地区的季节变化和对整体环境的影响感兴趣的科学家也很重要。

Under the direction of Dr. John Harris, Ms Purity Kiura will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. Her project is a study over the annual cycle by direct observation and stable isotope analysis of the food consumption of three groups of people with different subsistence strategies (the Dassanetch, Gabra and El-molo) living today to the East of Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya. The ultimate goal of this study is to provide an interpretive framework for investigating the subsistence strategies and diet of people believed to have occupied the region during the last 10,000 years (Holocene period). These three modern groups are not direct analogues for the Holocene peoples but do have diets similar to those proposed in the region by prior researchers. However, if by direct observations, including the analysis of food residues discarded in garbage pits, and by the study of stable isotope signatures of modern peoples that these are found to be discrete, then it may be possible to identify similar subsistence strategies in the regions Holocene record. Ms Kiura and her field assistants will conduct daily observations and interviews of the people's dietary behavior (food types, processing, preparing and sharing) while at the same time they will document the food remains that are discarded in garbage pits through the people's food processing and consumption activities. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to determine the food types consumed will be carried out on the people's hair, bone and teeth from the animals consumed by the people, and also the plants eaten by these animals. Daily weather observations (i.e. rain, humidity, temperature and wind patterns) will also be recorded to provide seasonal changes in the region.The data collected here will have broad implications beyond setting up a base for the study of the Holocene people's subsistence strategies. The data will also provide novel information on the dietary activities through the annual cycle of three modern groups of people that are poorly studied. Plants and animals in the region are poorly understood and this project will therefore provide very important information to plant physiologists, mammalogists, paleontologists and others. Daily weather records will also prove important to all scientists interested in the region's seasonal changes and effects on the overall environment.