Landscape Successions and Traces of Oldowan Hominid Land Use at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

坦桑尼亚奥杜瓦伊峡谷的景观演替和奥杜万原始人土地利用的痕迹

• 批准号: 0109027
• 负责人: Robert Blumenschine
• 金额: $ 24.71万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-07-01 至 2003-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0109027&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Landscape; Successions; Traces; Oldowan; Hominid

With primary support from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Robert Blumenschine, Fidelis Masao, and Charles Peters will lead an international and multidisciplinary team to continue their long-term research on ancestral human (hominid) behavior at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Olduvai Gorge preserves among the world's richest records of the earliest, Oldowan, stone tool industry and abundant vertebrate fossils in geological deposits dated between 1.9 and 1.6 million years ago. The stone artifacts, and fossil bones bearing butchery marks made by the stone tools, provide evidence for the diet, foraging tactics and technological activities of hominids in the lake basin that occupied the Olduvai area during Oldowan times. These archaeological traces of hominid activity are distributed patchily within an area of ca. 400 km2, providing an unusual opportunity to understand the nature of hominid adaptations to different environmental conditions within the lake basin. When fully developed, this understanding will allow us to assess the ecological factors that initially selected for humankind's unusual dependence on technology and carnivory. In order to accomplish this goal, we require a more detailed reconstruction of the landscapes occupied by Oldowan hominids in the prehistoric Olduvai lake basin. The reconstruction will be made by a team with individual expertise in geochronology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, palynology, plant phytoliths, marcro-plant fossils, stable isotopic geochemistry and small mammal taphonomy. Samples will be collected during two seven-week field seasons for analysis in specialized laboratories in the U.S., Europe, Tanzania, and South Africa. Landscape reconstructions will focus initially on the alluvial fan and lake margin settings of the eastern portion of the lake basin, in which we have already produced a large landscape archaeological sample and diverse paleoenvironmental indicators. These techniques of landscape reconstruction and additional archaeological excavations will be extended to the western portion of paleo-Olduvai Basin after we have established stratigraphic and age controls. Precise three-dimensional locational control of the archaeological and paleoenvironmental samples will be maintained using state-of-the-art mapping-level and survey-level global positioning system and optoelectronic total station equipment. Our work is designed to understand the ecological contrasts between the eastern and western portions of the basin in landscapes and hominid land use related to the repeated catastrophic volcanism that appears to have affected the eastern basin most severely, and in many cases exclusively. A small but important portion of NSF support for the project will be used to help Tanzania continue to develop its facilities and scientific personnel for archaeological and paleontological research. Improvements will be made to the laboratory and permanent research camp at Olduvai Gorge in cooperation with the Tanzanian Antiquities Unit. The storage capacity for fossil and artifact remains in the laboratory established by the researchers in Arusha in cooperation with the Tanzania National Museums. Tanzanian students and field assistants will continue to receive training in field and laboratory techniques. These efforts are critical to the long-term research viability and conservation of Olduvai Gorge, for which Tanzanians require facilities and well-trained staff to lead archaeological research and to manage archaeological collections.

在国家科学基金会的主要支持下，博士。罗伯特·布鲁门什因 (Robert Blumenschine)、菲德利斯·正男 (Fidelis Masao) 和查尔斯·彼得斯 (Charles Peters) 将领导一个国际多学科团队，继续对坦桑尼亚奥杜瓦伊峡谷的人类祖先（原始人）行为进行长期研究。奥杜瓦伊峡谷 (Olduvai Gorge) 保存着世界上最丰富的奥尔杜瓦 (Oldowan) 石器工业记录，地质矿床中保存着丰富的脊椎动物化石，其历史可追溯至 1.9 至 160 万年前。这些石制品和带有石器屠宰痕迹的化石骨头，为奥杜瓦时代占据奥杜瓦伊地区湖盆地区的原始人类的饮食、觅食策略和技术活动提供了证据。这些原始人类活动的考古痕迹零散地分布在大约 10 公里的区域内。 400 平方公里，为了解湖盆内原始人类适应不同环境条件的性质提供了一个不寻常的机会。当这种理解得到充分发展时，我们将能够评估最初选择的生态因素，这些因素导致人类对技术和肉食的不同寻常的依赖。为了实现这一目标，我们需要对史前奥杜威湖盆地中奥杜瓦原始人所占据的景观进行更详细的重建。重建工作将由一个在地质年代学、地层学、沉积学、孢粉学、植物植硅体、大型植物化石、稳定同位素地球化学和小型哺乳动物埋藏学方面具有专业知识的团队进行。将在两个为期七周的野外季节收集样本，以便在美国、欧洲、坦桑尼亚和南非的专业实验室进行分析。景观重建首先将集中于湖盆东部的冲积扇和湖缘环境，我们已经在其中制作了大型景观考古样本和多种古环境指标。在我们建立地层和年龄控制后，这些景观重建和额外的考古发掘技术将扩展到古奥杜瓦伊盆地的西部地区。将使用最先进的测绘级和测量级全球定位系统和光电全站仪设备，对考古和古环境样本进行精确的三维位置控制。我们的工作旨在了解盆地东部和西部地区在景观和原始人土地利用方面的生态差异，这些差异与反复发生的灾难性火山活动有关，这种火山活动似乎对东部盆地的影响最为严重，而且在许多情况下是专门影响东部盆地的。美国国家科学基金会对该项目的一小部分但重要的支持将用于帮助坦桑尼亚继续发展其考古和古生物学研究的设施和科学人员。将与坦桑尼亚文物部门合作，对奥杜瓦伊峡谷的实验室和永久研究营地进行改进。化石和文物的存储能力仍然保留在阿鲁沙研究人员与坦桑尼亚国家博物馆合作建立的实验室中。坦桑尼亚学生和现场助理将继续接受现场和实验室技术培训。这些努力对于奥杜瓦伊峡谷的长期研究可行性和保护至关重要，坦桑尼亚人需要设施和训练有素的工作人员来领导考古研究和管理考古收藏品。