Integrating geochemistry and ethnography to understand modern and ancient ochre use

社会、行为和经济科学局提供博士后研究奖学金，为新近毕业的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并在本科生和研究生培训之外拓宽他们的科学视野。博士后奖学金的进一步设计是为了帮助新科学家引导他们的研究努力跨越传统的学科界限，并利用独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括在国外。这一博士后奖学金支持了一位正在崛起的跨学科学者，他正在研究石器时代考古遗址中的赭石颜料。利用新的地球化学技术研究赭石的来源，特别是最小破坏性的微量元素指纹，提高了对古代象征的潜在意义和意义的理解。这项研究建立在这些方法的基础上，将铁、锶和铅的稳定同位素分析应用于今天肯尼亚传统社会使用的地质来源，以及赭石文物和岩石艺术颜料样本。多同位素分析不仅可以提高物源识别的准确性，而且有助于我们对赭石矿床形成的地质机制的认识。最后，目前使用赭石的土著居民提供的信息将使我们更多地了解他们的颜料来源偏好、原材料选择标准、颜料制备技术以及与地质来源、岩石艺术图像和着色文物相关的象征意义。加深对现代赭石的使用及其含义的理解，将为人类从石器时代到今天的象征主义演变提供新的线索。通过符号交流信息和身份是我们人类的一个基本属性。几十万年来，人类一直使用红色和黄色的赭石颜料作为象征。然而，岩石艺术和其他涉及这些铁基颜料的实践在现代还没有得到充分的研究。因此，对这种迅速消失的文化遗产形式的研究对于理解象征主义的起源至关重要。这个项目将考古学、人种学和地球化学学结合起来，研究赭石的使用。首先，将通过与现代岩石艺术画家的合作，确定最近的岩石艺术遗址和用于颜料的赭石沉积物。然后，将使用地球化学技术来描述赭石沉积物的特征，并将它们与来自岩石艺术遗址的油漆样本和来自考古遗址的赭石文物进行匹配。这种方法将有助于核实从人种学信息中确定的岩石艺术颜料的来源。该项目将改进可用于赭石颜料和其他含铁材料的最小破坏性分析方法。改进确定赭石颜料地质来源的方法，对于识别被掠夺的遗产物品、赝品以及制止危及物质文化和加剧世界各地冲突的非法古董贸易具有重大意义。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports a rising interdisciplinary scholar studying ochre pigments from Stone Age archaeological sites. Understanding the potential significance and meaning of ancient symbolism has been enhanced by novel geochemical techniques for provenance studies of ochre, particularly minimally destructive trace element fingerprinting. This study builds on these methods by adapting iron, strontium, and lead stable isotope analysis to geologic sources used by traditional societies in Kenya today, and to ochre artifacts and rock art paint samples. Multi-isotope analysis can improve the accuracy of provenance identification, and also contribute to our understanding of the geologic mechanisms of ochre deposit formation. Finally, information provided by indigenous people who currently use ochre will allow us to learn more about their pigment source preferences, criteria for raw material selection, techniques of pigment preparation, and symbolic meanings associated with geologic sources, rock art images, and pigmented artifacts. Enhanced understanding of modern ochre use and its meanings will shed new light on the evolution of human symbolism from the Stone Age to present day.Communicating information and identity with symbols is an essential attribute of our species. Humans have used red and yellow ochre pigments for symbolic expression for hundreds of thousands of years. However, rock art and other practices involving these iron-based pigments are understudied in the modern era. Research on this rapidly vanishing form of cultural heritage is thus critical to understanding the origins of symbolism. This project bridges archaeology, ethnography, and geochemistry to investigate ochre use. First, recent rock art sites and the ochre deposits used for pigments will be identified through collaboration with modern rock art painters. Geochemical techniques will then be used to characterize the ochre deposits, and to match them to paint samples from rock art sites and ochre artifacts from archaeological sites. This approach will facilitate verification of the sources of rock art pigments identified from ethnographic information. This project will refine minimally destructive analytical methods that can be used for ochre pigments and other iron-containing materials. Improving methods to determine geologic sources of ochre pigments has significant implications for identifying looted heritage items, forgeries, and for stemming the illicit antiquities trade that endangers tangible culture and fuels conflict around the world.