Excavation of Middle and Later Stone Age Sites at Erfkroon, South Africa

在美国国家科学基金会的资助下。来自德克萨斯州立大学的布里特·布斯曼和詹姆斯·布林克，以及来自美国、英国、南非和澳大利亚大学和博物馆的同事们将在位于南非自由州西部的埃尔夫克鲁恩考古遗址进行考古调查。该团队汇集了考古学家、地质学家、土壤科学家、古生物学家、古植物学家和年代测定专家，研究中石器时代现代人类行为和认知的演变。大约20万年前，解剖学意义上的现代人出现在非洲，但10万年后才有现代人行为的可靠证据被记录下来。此外，南部非洲海岸和内陆草原的事件之间似乎存在差异，早期证据表明现代人类在沿海地区的行为。这种时间滞后和地理上的不连续性给古人类学家带来了一个重大难题。如果人类的解剖学和认知是一起进化的，为什么在解剖学上的现代人的发展和现代人的行为之间会有如此巨大的脱节呢？这些挖掘有望提供独特的证据，证明非洲内陆地区向现代人类行为的过渡，这是一个研究很少的地区，可能在解决这一难题方面发挥关键作用。为了解决这些人类发展的脱节，将在Erfkroon的Modder河谷进行中晚更新世阶地矿床的挖掘。初步调查表明，Erfkroon可以提供非常详细的记录，并且可以将这一记录与更知名的南部非洲沿海地区进行比较。Erfkroon的研究将：(1)发掘可追溯到过去16.5万年的中新世和晚更新世的职业；(2)基于分层良好的阶地沉积物，将这些职业固定在一个牢固的地质年代框架内；(3)用地质、土壤、植物岩、古植物学和稳定同位素数据重建过去的环境；(4)分析动物遗骸，以确定动物开采的性质、狩猎偏好和方法。5)记录MSA时期技术策略的性质；6)整合这些不同的证据来源，以评估现代人类首次出现在非洲时期人类行为和认知的性质。Erfkroon的发掘可能为非洲中晚更新世时期人类进化的模式和速度提供重要信息。这个项目的智力价值在于测试人类进化和认知的四个特定模型。这些模型将人类认知与早期智人群体的解剖进化联系起来或加以否定。这项研究的更广泛影响将解决人类行为和认知的进化问题。这些问题对古人类学家和进化心理学家来说意义重大。南非、英国和美国的考古学、地质学和环境科学学生将参加这个项目。这将直接有助于他们在各自领域的培训，并大大增加我们对南部非洲现代人类进化的了解。

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Britt Bousman and James Brink from Texas State University and a team of colleagues from American, British, South African and Australian universities and museums will conduct archaeological investigations at Erfkroon an archaeological site located in the western Free State of South Africa. The team brings together archaeologists, geologists, soil scientists, paleontologists, paleobotanists and dating experts to examine the evolution of modern human behavior and cognition during the Middle Stone Age period. By approximately 200,000 years ago anatomically modern humans had appeared in Africa, but 100,000 years passed before reliable evidence of modern human behavior is documented. Also, there appears to be a difference between events on the coast of Southern Africa and the interior grasslands with earlier evidence for modern human behavior along the coasts. This time lag and geographic discontinuity present a significant puzzle for paleoanthropologists. If human anatomy and cognition evolved together, why would there be such a vast disjunction between the development of anatomically modern humans and modern human behavior? These excavations promise to provide unique evidence of the transition to modern human behavior in the interior, a poorly studied region of Africa that could play a critical role for solving this puzzle. In order to address these disjunctions in human development, excavations in Middle and Late Pleistocene terrace deposits in the Modder River valley at Erfkroon will undertaken. Preliminary investigations demonstrate that Erfkroon can provide a highly detailed record, and this record can be compared to the much better known coastal regions of Southern Africa. The Erfkroon research will 1) excavate occupations dating to the Middle and Late Pleistocene spanning the last 165,000 years, 2) affix these occupations within a firm geochronological framework based on well stratified terrace deposits, 3) reconstruct past environments with geological, soils, phytolith, paleobotanical and stable isotope data, 4) analyze the faunal remains to determine the nature of animal exploitation and hunting preferences and methods, 5) document the nature of technological strategies during the MSA, and 6) integrate these various sources of evidence to assess the nature of human behavior and cognition during the period when modern humans first emerged in Africa. The Erfkroon excavations may provide critical information on the mode and tempo of human evolution during the Middle and Late Pleistocene period in Africa. The intellectual merit of this project rests on the testing of four specific models of human evolution and cognition. These models link or reject links between human cognition and anatomical evolution in early populations of Homo sapiens sapiens.The broader impacts of this study will address evolutionary questions of human behavior and cognition. These issues are significant to paleoanthropologists and evolutionary psychologists. South African, British and U.S. archaeology, geology and environmental sciences students will take part in this project. This will contribute directly to their training in their respective fields and dramatically increase our knowledge of modern human evolution in Southern Africa.