吉林抚松枫林遗址细石核研究

枫林遗址是坐落于吉林省抚松县漫江镇的一处旧石器时代晚期旷野遗址。2016年,吉林省文物考古研究所、中国科学院古脊椎动物与古人类研究所以及抚松县文管所工作人员对该遗址进行了调查与发掘,获得了数量丰富的石制品,类型包括细石叶、细石核、石叶和精加工的石器等,原料以黑曜岩为主。其中,细石核典型、精美,具备从原料采备、初期加工、调整再利用到使用废弃的各阶段特征。本文运用"操作链"的分析理念,以动态的视角对该遗址楔形石核的技术特征进行分析。对于细石核的技术与类型分析表明,该遗址以楔形细石核、工具类细石核等为主体的细石叶工艺产品,代表了东北亚地区旧石器时代晚期细石叶工艺的特色。该项研究有助于阐释旧石器时代晚期东北亚地区狩猎采集人群的石器技术特点、工具制作能力和生存模式,为探讨更新世末期细石叶工艺在东亚地区的扩散和人群互动提供新的线索。     

河南灵宝旧石器考古调查报告

2016年以来,河南省文物考古研究院等单位在河南三门峡地区进行旧石器考古调查,在灵宝窄口水库周边发现旧石器地点8处、石制品74件及少量动物化石;石制品中有47件出自地层。石制品主要埋藏在黄土堆积和河流相堆积中,原料以石英岩为主,类型包括石器、石核、石片、断块等。石核包括单台面石核、双台面石核、盘状石核和多台面石核;石片以锤击石片为主;石器主要为刮削器和砍砸器,也有似手斧和凹缺器等。从技术和类型上判断,该地区的石器工业属于中国北方旧石器时代早期普遍存在的石核-石片工业。石制品多出自黄土-古土壤条带L11～S5之间,年代范围为0.99～0.48 MaBP,属旧石器时代早期。本次调查成果表明,该地区具有发现更多、更重要旧石器时代遗址并开展深入考古发掘与研究的潜力。     

甘肃杨上旧石器遗址剥片技术与策略

本文通过对甘肃杨上旧石器时代遗址出土石核与石片的原料、形态和类型的分析，探讨了石制品所体现的古人类的剥片技术及其特点，并从原料适应与文化传承的角度探讨了其技术策略产生的原因。杨上遗址石制品原料以脉石英为主，打片采用锤击法；包括普通石核和盘状石核两种剥片模式。由于脉石英原料易碎且破裂方式较难预判，导致剥片的掌控难度大，故而石核多呈现出台面选择的机会性与不确定性，缺少对于台面的修整以及剥片面的固定深入开发。在石片毛坯加工修整难度较大的情况下，古人可能更倾向于生产大量的石片，并从中选取形态角度合适的边刃直接使用。石核、石片的类型组合以及原料的构成比例从早到晚无明显变化，体现了陇西黄土高原旧石器时代早期文化传承的稳定性。     

宁夏水洞沟遗址第7地点石制品的剥片与修理技术

水洞沟遗址是中国较早发现并且最早发掘的旧石器遗址,该遗址自1923年发现以来便因其出土较多具有欧洲旧石器时代中晚过渡期特征的石制品而受到国内外学者的广泛关注。本文以水洞沟遗址第7地点（SDG7）出土的石制品材料为基础,主要从石核剥片策略和工具修理策略两个方面进行石器技术的分析研究。石核、石片以及工具的分析显示,SDG7存在两大石器技术体系：一是中国北方常见的占主导地位的石片石器技术,该技术不存在剥片前对石核的预制过程,而是以简单剥片石核、大量的不规则石片以及修理程度较低的工具为代表,少量采用优质原料精致加工的工具类型体现出旧石器时代晚期该技术的发展和进步;二是Levallois-like石叶技术,以少量的Levallois-like石核（扁脸石核）为代表,与SDG1、SDG2（CL5a）以及SDG9出土的同类石核呈现技术理念的一致性,该技术以剥离较大尺寸的石叶/长石片为目的,且均具有台面的预制修理和剥片面的维护现象,应为外来的技术体系。SDG7石器技术的分析可为水洞沟遗址区技术演化序列的构建、整体文化面貌的揭示以及技术变化原因的探讨提供新的材料和参考。     

中国旧石器时代早、中期石器技术多样性研究的新进展

关于中国石器技术发展轨迹和特点,其中一种观点认为,在更新世大部分时间内,中国石器技术以第1模式为主。本文结合近年的考古发现和研究成果,对中更新世早期至距今约4万年的中国石器技术面貌进行了简要总结。这段时间内的中国石器技术呈现出明显的多样性和复杂性,尤其自晚更新世以来,多种石器技术体系并存,其中包括以手斧、手镐和薄刃斧等大型工具为特色的阿舍利技术体系、以盘状石核和各类小型工具为特征的小型石片石器技术体系、以勒瓦娄哇石核和尖状器为特点的莫斯特技术体系、以及以基纳型刮削器为主的莫斯特技术体系,后两者具有明显的旧石器时代中期技术特点。多种石器技术体系共存,这一现象反映了技术发展的区域性和该阶段人群构成的多样性,这为探讨古人类环境适应行为以及区域间人群扩散交流提供了重要信息。     

泥河湾盆地火山角砾岩原料的热处理实验

泥河湾盆地内发现了众多以精致楔形细石核为特色的细石器遗址。在以往的研究中,研究者对此类石制品组合进行了技术、类型等方面的研究,但其石料来源、石料是否经过热处理等问题仍未得到妥善解决。本文开展了盆地内旧石器时代晚期晚段常用原料火山角砾岩的调查和热处理实验研究。研究表明,泥河湾盆地六棱山基岩中的火山角砾岩,直接使用时,难以满足楔形细石核压制剥片对原料品质的要求;经过600°C的热处理后,其抗力性降低、延展性提高,剥片性能显著提高,可很好地进行楔形细石核的系统压制剥片。基于实验观察,同时借鉴其他学者的研究成果,本文对下卜庄遗址的相关材料进行了初步分析,发现了石料热处理行为的线索。对泥河湾盆地旧石器时代晚期遗址开展系统的石料热处理研究,有望揭示盆地内古人类对石料热处理的复杂行为。     

东北亚楔形细石核模拟剥片实验研究的回顾与展望

旧石器时代晚期东北亚地区涌现出大量细石叶技术遗存,楔形细石核是该技术组合中的重要代表。楔形细石核因为多样的类型、广泛的分布受到学术界的关注,研究者从不同方面对其展开分析,其中模拟剥片实验发挥着关键作用。20世纪80年代以来,多位学者对东北亚地区广泛分布的楔形细石核进行了模拟剥片实验,尝试使用直接打击法、间接打击法、压制法从该类石核上剥制细石叶,设计了多种与剥片工艺配合使用的石核固定方式,还从原料选择策略、石核预制方法等角度展开讨论。本文从选用原料、预制石核、剥片工艺与固定方式等方面对这些实验取得的成果与存在的问题进行了梳理、总结和剖析,并对模拟实验在细石叶技术研究中的作用与发展前景进行分析和展望,以期为相关研究提供信息、启示并起到推动作用。     

旧石器技术研究法之应用——以观音洞石核为例

中国旧石器材料数量众多,表现出一定的地域特色,在世界旧石器考古学领域占有重要地位.研究表明,类型学在解读与提取石器所包含的人类技术行为信息方面的能力有较大的局限性,而且中国旧石器时代的一些石制品的形态和组合与欧洲和近东常常难以直接对比,对器物的分类定名也存在交流上的困难.由法国学者开创发展起来的史前石器技术研究理论和方法在分析形态特征的同时,通过关注支配石器工业生产体系的技术机制和逻辑规则,对深入细致地探讨史前人类的认知特征和技术行为可以发挥重要作用,也能为石器工业甚至跨地域文化之间的比较提供基础.本文对贵州观音洞遗址的石核标本为例进行了技术分析,说明其在研究中国旧石器材料上的可行性,特别是信息提取上的优势.     

许昌人遗址研究的新收获及展望

许昌人遗址位于河南省许昌市灵井镇,2005-2017年发掘,揭露面积500余平方米,2007、2014年在9号探方出土包括2颗"许昌人"头骨在内的5个古人类个体,大量的石制品和21种哺乳动物化石。头骨具有东亚古人类、欧洲尼安德特人和早期现代人的镶嵌特征,可能代表一种新型的古老型人类。石制品研究显示,石核类型多样,且以小型双锥形盘状石核为特色;小型工具类型分异明显、加工精细,显示出不同于旧石器时代早期遗址中的工具技术,而与西方旧石器时代中期遗址工具技术上的特点较为一致。此外,遗址出土7件软锤工具,以动物长骨或鹿角为原料,用以修理石质工具。软锤工具的发现,对于认识中国旧石器时代技术的发展有重要意义。通过对遗址形成过程的分析,"许昌人"生活时期的沉积环境经历了三个阶段:下部灰绿色滨湖相粉砂堆积所指示的水流动力相对较弱的沉积环境,中部综红色粉砂堆积所指示的水流动力相对较强的沉积环境,以及上部浅棕红色粉砂堆积所指示的相对冷湿、水动力仍然较强的沉积环境。尽管存在水动力强弱上的相对变化,但水动力总体上并不大,以低能量水流为主,文化遗物属于原地埋藏。今后将开展人类艺术行为能力、古人用软锤和压制法制作石器的技术、动物埋藏学和年代学等方面的深入研究。     

泥河湾盆地东谷坨遗址2016-2019年发掘简报

泥河湾盆地内埋藏有诸多旧石器时代早期遗址,是研究古人类扩散、适应和技术演化的重要区域。东谷坨遗址位于泥河湾盆地的东缘,丰富的文化遗物为研究石器技术和人类行为提供了重要证据。在2016-2019年的发掘中,发掘团队将原来的6A-6E五个文化层进一步划为八个文化层,共出土编号石制品6800余件、化石4100余件。本文重点对6A2和6C1两个主要文化层的出土标本进行初步报道。石制品原料均以遗址周边分布的燧石为主,质量相对较高的石料被优选。锤击石核与石片、砸击石核均有发现;尝试石核和多面多向剥片的石核是主要类型。石器以刮削器为主,多为单刃。两个文化层的石制品类型与技术存在一定差异,如：6A2层石核转向频率更高、双刃石器比例更高,而6C1层锯齿刃器比例高于6A2层等,但总体上呈现了旧石器时代早期相对简单的剥片与加工模式。可鉴定动物化石种类不多,少量骨骼上有疑似人工砍砸的痕迹。本次发掘出土的材料为解释盆地内早更新世人类的石器技术和行为演化等提供了丰富的信息,同时也为理解早期人类对原料资源的利用方式、流动性组织等提供了重要素材。     

The Industrial Ecology of Emerging Technologies

The modern world increasingly reflects human activities, to the point that many scientists are referring to this era as the "Anthropocene," the Age of Humans. A major domain of human activity involves sociotechnical systems, which can be characterized as occurring in constellations of coevolving technological, cultural, institutional, economic, and psychological systems lasting over many decades. The current constellation, still in its early stages of development, brings together five powerful technology systems—nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, information and communication technology, and cognitive science—that are even more complex than historical precedents because they enable not just far more powerful capabilities to design domains external to humans but also the potential to design individual humans themselves. Understanding the implications of this sociotechnical landscape for industrial ecology suggests profound theoretical challenges as well as important new areas of research.     

El Kowm Oasis,human settlement in the Syrian Desert during the Pleistocene

The area of the El Kowm oasis in the centre of today's Syria is a unique showcase of Middle Eastern prehistory not only for its geographic position within the Arabian Desert, but also for the depth of its history. In fact the core area, about a dozen kilometres across, with the numerous natural springs were an important attractor for game and humans, visiting regularly this region since more than 1.8 million years. All over the periods, from the Lower Palaeolithic to the arrival of farmers, definitely arid conditions prevailed, perfectly showing human adaption to this particular environment, as has been clearly demonstrated by several extensive excavations of exceptionally rich Palaeolithic sites. Exceptional preservation conditions due to a particular geological setting in the context of active or dry springs offer an extraordinary resolution of human behaviour within a limited landscape during the complete period of the Pleistocene, illustrating cognitive capacities of early man to cope readily with arid environments, challenge the migration routes proposed by Out of Africa diffusion models, typically considered to be corridors with a superior environmental potential.     

Natural pedagogy as evolutionary adaptation

We propose that the cognitive mechanisms that enable the transmission of cultural knowledge by communication between individuals constitute a system of 'natural pedagogy' in humans, and represent an evolutionary adaptation along the hominin lineage. We discuss three kinds of arguments that support this hypothesis. First, natural pedagogy is likely to be human-specific: while social learning and communication are both widespread in non-human animals, we know of no example of social learning by communication in any other species apart from humans. Second, natural pedagogy is universal: despite the huge variability in child-rearing practices, all human cultures rely on communication to transmit to novices a variety of different types of cultural knowledge, including information about artefact kinds, conventional behaviours, arbitrary referential symbols, cognitively opaque skills and know-how embedded in means-end actions. Third, the data available on early hominin technological culture are more compatible with the assumption that natural pedagogy was an independently selected adaptive cognitive system than considering it as a by-product of some other human-specific adaptation, such as language. By providing a qualitatively new type of social learning mechanism, natural pedagogy is not only the product but also one of the sources of the rich cultural heritage of our species.     

Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of Religion

Recent studies of the evolution of religion have revealed the cognitive underpinnings of belief in supernatural agents, the role of ritual in promoting cooperation, and the contribution of morally punishing high gods to the growth and stabilization of human society. The universality of religion across human society points to a deep evolutionary past. However, specific traits of nascent religiosity, and the sequence in which they emerged, have remained unknown. Here we reconstruct the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors in early modern humans using a global sample of hunter-gatherers and seven traits describing hunter-gatherer religiosity: animism, belief in an afterlife, shamanism, ancestor worship, high gods, and worship of ancestors or high gods who are active in human affairs. We reconstruct ancestral character states using a time-calibrated supertree based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification and then test for correlated evolution between the characters and for the direction of cultural change. Results indicate that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism, in agreement with long-standing beliefs about the fundamental role of this trait. Belief in an afterlife emerged, followed by shamanism and ancestor worship. Ancestor spirits or high gods who are active in human affairs were absent in early humans, suggesting a deep history for the egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies. There is a significant positive relationship between most characters investigated, but the trait “high gods” stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion.     

Acheulean Industries of the Early and Middle Pleistocene,Middle Awash,Ethiopia

The Middle Awash region of Ethiopia contains a rich record of Acheulean occupation spanning from Early Pleistocene times through much of the Middle Pleistocene. Here we will present an overview of some of the major reported features of the Acheulean archaeological record of the Middle Awash (Clark et al., 1994; de Heinzelin et al., 2000) and compare and contrast earlier and later biface technological patterns in this important study area. As an overall pattern, later Acheulean bifaces, here tend to differ from earlier ones in the following characteristics: later biface forms tend to be smaller, more ovate, wider relative to length, thinner (both relative to length and width and in absolute terms), more symmetrical, more heavily flaked, show greater use of soft hammer flaking and Kombewa technique, be straighter-edged or less sinuous, and often exhibit a remarkably high degree of standardization at a given site. These technological changes over perhaps half a million years (between approximately 1.0 and 0.5 million years ago) accompany the transition from Homo erectus to Homo heidelbergensis in this region. The later technological patterns thus correlate with the emergence of larger-brained, more intelligent hominids that exhibit greater technological finesse and also appear to develop and maintain stronger rules and traditions pertaining to their technological behaviors. It is likely that, relative to earlier hominids, these later hominid forms (which would evolve into early anatomically modern humans or Homo sapiens) had richer communicative abilities and cultural complexity, which we believe to be manifested in the technological finesse and standardization of their material culture.     

Stone toolmaking and the evolution of human culture and cognition

Although many species display behavioural traditions, human culture is unique in the complexity of its technological, symbolic and social contents. Is this extraordinary complexity a product of cognitive evolution, cultural evolution or some interaction of the two? Answering this question will require a much better understanding of patterns of increasing cultural diversity, complexity and rates of change in human evolution. Palaeolithic stone tools provide a relatively abundant and continuous record of such change, but a systematic method for describing the complexity and diversity of these early technologies has yet to be developed. Here, an initial attempt at such a system is presented. Results suggest that rates of Palaeolithic culture change may have been underestimated and that there is a direct relationship between increasing technological complexity and diversity. Cognitive evolution and the greater latitude for cultural variation afforded by increasingly complex technologies may play complementary roles in explaining this pattern.     

Synaptopathies: diseases of the synaptome

The human synapse proteome is a highly complex collection of proteins that is disrupted by hundreds of gene mutations causing over 100 brain diseases. These synaptic diseases, or synaptopathies, cause major psychiatric, neurological and childhood developmental disorders through mendelian and complex genetic mechanisms. The human postsynaptic proteome and its core signaling complexes built by the assembly of receptors and enzymes around Membrane Associated Guanylate Kinase (MAGUK) scaffold proteins are a paradigm for systematic analysis of synaptic diseases. In humans, the MAGUK Associated Signaling Complexes are mutated in Autism, Schizophrenia, Intellectual Disability and many other diseases, and mice carrying orthologous mutations show relevant cognitive, social, motoric and other phenotypes. Diseases with similar phenotypes and symptom spectrums arise from disruption of complexes and interacting proteins within the synapse proteome. Classifying synaptic disease phenotypes with genetic and proteome data provides a new brain disease classification system based on molecular etiology and pathogenesis.     

制作工具在人类演化中的地位与作用

制作工具曾经被视作人类独有的行为能力,"人类"曾经据此而定义。但目前学术界将直立行走作为人类区别于其他灵长类最重要的体质与行为特征。少量其他动物种类,尤其是非人高等灵长类,也能使用工具乃至简单制作工具。如何认识制作工具在人类演化中的作用?人类制作工具的能力与其他动物有何区别?考古学是否有能力分辨人类的工具和其他灵长类的产品?本文通过对现代巴西猴群敲砸石头的行为及其产品、4300年前黑猩猩的"石制品"和早期人类石制品的比较研究,指出人类的工具与其他动物制作和使用的工具存在根本的区别;工具制作和使用对确定人类的演化方向,增强人类的适应生存能力,塑造人类的大脑与心智及行为方式,提升语言和交流能力,形成现代人类的身心和社会,至关重要,不可或缺。考古工作者一方面需要谨慎分辨、研究人类工具制作初期的产品,不使其与自然的产物和其他动作的作品相混淆,另一方面应该认识到人类工具制作在计划性、目的性、预见性、规范性和精美度上具有唯一性,有内在的智能控制、思维逻辑和规律可循。学科发展的积累和现代科技的支撑使考古学者具有多方面的利器,能够把人类工具制作的历史挖掘、复原出来,能够破译特定的石器技术和功能,进而将人类演化的历史画卷描绘得更加精细,更加完整。