Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: A GIS-Based Approach to the Study of Hominin Carcass Acquisition at Kanjera South, Kenya

最早的人属成员的饮食和生存行为对于理解早期人类的行为生态学和人类进化的生态背景至关重要。由于肉类是一种高质量的资源，其在饮食中的重要性及其获取方法特别令人感兴趣。早期人属成员增加吃肉的转变一直被认为是人类谱系中一个决定性的适应。然而，这是如何发生的，以什么方式发生的，以及由此产生的对我们人类祖先的生态和行为的影响，目前还没有得到很好的理解。本研究提出通过对肯尼亚肯杰拉南部200万年前的考古骨骼组合中人类和食肉动物诱导的变异的研究，来测试目前关于人类生存策略和人类与食肉动物竞争的相互竞争的假设。古人类屠宰标记和食肉动物牙齿标记在化石上的模式将被评估相对于现代的，实验性的骨头组合，这些骨头在受控条件下被食肉动物屠宰和食用。这种比较将有助于推断早期人类和食肉动物之间的竞争程度以及对尸体的利用程度。为了解决生存策略如何随环境因素而变化，该数据集将与另外两个年龄大致相同但沉积在不同环境下的考古骨骼组合进行比较（FwJj 20，肯尼亚Koobi Fora和FLK Zinj，坦桑尼亚Olduvai峡谷）。骨表面修饰的图案将使用GIS图像分析方法进行分析。通过对更新世古人类与食肉动物相互作用的假设进行评估，并记录古人类的尸体获取策略，本研究将有助于更广泛地了解早期古人类的进化适应和行为生态学。这将是迄今为止最严谨的研究，通过对不同环境背景下形成的遗址的分析，在比较框架下检查早期人类行为生态学。通过这个项目创建的实验性食肉动物啃食组合将是对现有的越来越多的实际组合的特别有价值的补充，因为它将是对犬科动物啃食模式的最彻底的记录。最后，本项目将引入一种严谨的基于gis的方法来研究古人类和食肉动物的骨修饰。一种GIS图像分析方法将被用来比以前更精确地量化骨修饰。这项研究将首次将这种方法应用于分析食肉动物修饰的组合。本文采用的新方法将为考古骨数据记录的更大标准化奠定基础。拟议的研究将促进与肯尼亚国家博物馆的研究人员的国际合作，数据收集将在那里进行。此外，本研究将促进女性在科学上的发展，促进她的研究生培养，以及本科生实习生的培养。

The diet and subsistence behaviors of the earliest members of the genus Homo are central to understanding the behavioral ecology of early hominins and the ecological context of human evolution in general. Because meat is a high quality resource, its importance in the diet and its method of acquisition are of particular interest. The shift toward increased meat eating by early members of the genus Homo has been argued to be a defining adaptation in the human lineage. However, how and in what manner this occurred and the resulting ecological and behavioral repercussions for our hominin ancestors is currently not well understood. This study proposes to test current competing hypotheses of hominin subsistence strategies and hominin-carnivore competition through a study of hominin- and carnivore-induced modifications in the 2.0 million year old archaeological bone assemblage from Kanjera South, Kenya. Patterns in hominin butchery marking and carnivore tooth marking on fossils will be assessed relative to modern, experimental bone assemblages that have been butchered and fed on by carnivores under controlled conditions. This comparison will allow inferences to be made regarding the degree of competition between early hominins and carnivores as well as the extent of carcass utilization. In order to address how subsistence strategies may have varied relative to environmental factors, this dataset will then be compared to two additional archaeological bone assemblages of roughly the same age but deposited in different environmental settings (FwJj 20, Koobi Fora, Kenya and FLK Zinj, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania). Patterning in bone surface modifications will be analyzed using a GIS image-analysis method.By evaluating hypotheses of Pleistocene hominin-carnivore interactions and documenting hominin carcass acquisition strategies, this study will contribute to the broader understanding of early hominin evolutionary adaptation and behavioral ecology. This will be the most rigorous study to date examining early hominin behavioral ecology in a comparative framework through an analysis of sites formed within different environmental contexts. The experimental carnivore-gnawed assemblage created through this project will be a particularly valuable addition to the growing number of existing actualistic assemblages, as it will be the most thorough documentation of canid gnawing patterns. Finally this project will introduce a rigorous GIS-based method to the study of hominin and carnivore bone modification. A GIS image-analysis method will be used to quantify bone modifications in a more precise way than has been done previously. This study will be the first to apply this method to analyze a carnivore-modified assemblage. The new methodology employed here will lay the groundwork for development of greater standardization in archaeological bone data recording.The proposed research will foster international collaborations with researchers at the National Museums of Kenya, where data collection will be conducted. Further, this research will advance a female in science and facilitate her graduate training, as well as the training of undergraduate student interns.