AHRC-NSF MOU: Hunter-gatherer Behavior in the Landscape: Reconstructing Movement Patterns in the British Late Upper Palaeolithic (~14,000 BP) through ICP-MS Trace Element Analysis

在联合王国国家科学基金会和艺术及人文研究理事会的共同支持下，Paul Pettit博士(联合王国)和Marcy Rockman博士(美国)将对英国上一次冰河时代结束时的重新殖民的考古学和地球化学进行为期一年的研究。该项目将汇集旧石器时代和景观考古学以及火石地质学方面的专门知识，以审查文化适应新环境的过程。该项目将重点放在克雷斯韦尔岩的遗址，这是英国已知的唯一拥有冰河时代晚期洞穴艺术的地点。在上一个冰河时代(大约15,000年前)结束时，英国已经有几千年没有人口了。然而，随着气候变暖，狩猎-采集群体回到北欧，进入巴黎盆地、中莱茵河和默兹山谷，最后进入英国。英国景观的成功再殖民需要返回的群体对主要食物资源的性质和位置以及用作石器原材料的高质量可加工打火石的性质和位置有新的了解。来自欧洲大陆的数据显示，高质量的打火石被携带到了长达80-120公里的距离，这表明在季节性迁徙过程中，关键的石器材料得到了保护。这个项目将重建14-15,000年前在英国定居的狩猎-采集群体的打火石运输模式和相关的景观学习过程。一项初步研究表明，利用几乎非破坏性的激光烧蚀电感耦合等离子体质谱(LA-ICP-MS)痕量元素表征技术，可以区分白垩纪含火石地层的区域。在克雷斯韦尔岩壁发现的艺术品是版画和浅浮雕，在欧洲大陆很少见。项目任务包括：1)LA-ICPMS表征白垩纪盆地(横跨英格兰南部和东部)内的打火石地质来源；2)LA-ICPMS分析来自英国各地13个晚期冰川遗址的打火石文物，包括克雷斯韦尔岩石场；以及3)利用地形和最近的放射性碳数据分析打火石来源数据。由此得到的整个英国的弗林特运输量图将使人们能够与北欧大陆的数据进行比较。该项目的学术价值有两方面：第一，它是第一次详细研究打火石的地球化学性质，这是一种在许多时期广泛使用的石器材料，使人们能够在新石器时代的打火石开采之前对其使用情况进行评估；第二，它通过将克雷斯韦尔洞穴艺术与常见食物和材料任务所创造的空间模式联系起来，为研究克雷斯韦尔洞穴艺术所显示的文化连续性和创新提供了一个行为框架。这项研究的更广泛的影响在于它将提供关于风景是如何被学习的指示；在冰河晚期英国使用风景是相对简单的欧洲大陆形式的种植，还是人类在新的和不断变化的环境中的社会和经济灵活性和适应性的一个例子。

With the joint support of the National Science Foundation and Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom, Dr. Paul Pettitt (UK) and Dr. Marcy Rockman (USA) will conduct one year of research into the archaeology and geochemistry of the recolonization of Britain at the end of the last Ice Age. The project will bring together expertise in Palaeolithic and landscape archaeology and flint geology to examine the processes of cultural adaptation to new environments. The project will emphasize sites at Creswell Crags, the only location in Britain known to have late Ice Age cave art. At the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 15,000 years ago), Britain had been devoid of human populations for many millennia. As the climate warmed, however, hunter-gatherer groups returned to northern Europe, moving into the Paris Basin, the Middle Rhine and Meuse Valleys, and finally Britain. Successful recolonization of the British landscape required returning groups to develop anew knowledge about the nature and locations of major food resources and of high-quality workable flint used as the raw material for stone tools. Data from mainland Europe, where human groups were more continuously present and therefore data more abundant than for Britain, show that high-quality flints were carried for distances of up to 80-120 km, indicating conservation of critical stone tool materials over the course of seasonal migrations.This project will reconstruct the flint transport patterns and related landscape learning processes for the hunter-gatherer groups who resettled Britain between 14-15,000 years ago. A pilot study demonstrated that regions of the flint-bearing Cretaceous Chalk formation can be distinguished using the virtually non-destructive laser ablation inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) technique of trace element characterization. Art identified at Creswell Crags are engravings and bas relief, rare in mainland Europe. Project tasks include 1) LA-ICP-MS characterization of geological sources of flint within the Cretaceous Chalk basin (which extends across southern and eastern England); 2) LA-ICP-MS analysis of flint artifacts from 13 late glacial sites across Britain, including sites at Creswell Crags; and 3) analysis of flint origin data with landform and recent radiocarbon data. The resulting picture of flint transport across Britain will allow comparison with data from mainland northern Europe. The intellectual merit of this project is two-fold: first, it is the first detailed study of the geochemistry of flint, a widely used stone tool material in many time periods, in a manner that allows assessment of its use prior to flint mining in the Neolithic; second, it provides a behavioural framework for study of the cultural continuity and innovation indicated by the Creswell cave art by linking the art to spatial patterns created by common food and material tasks. The broader impacts of this study lie in the indications it will provide of how landscapes are learned; whether use of landscape in late glacial Britain was a relatively simple 'planting' of forms from the continent or an example of human social and economic flexibility and adaptability in a new and changing environment.