Descrizione del progetto
Indagare le varianti della tecnologia nubiana in Sudafrica
Il Mesolitico è stato un periodo cruciale per il primo sviluppo anatomico e comportamentale dell’uomo. Il progetto TANKwA, finanziato dall’UE, si propone di studiare gli adattamenti tecnologici umani alle regioni aride durante il Mesolitico. In particolare, concentrerà la sua ricerca su una variante tecnologica del tardo Mesolitico basata sulla tecnologia nubiana osservata nella regione del Karoo in Sudafrica. Il progetto metterà alla prova l’ipotesi secondo cui questa tecnologia sia stata una risposta adattiva alle difficoltà affrontate dai cacciatori-raccoglitori in un ambiente arido. A tal fine, utilizzerà tecniche morfometriche geometriche digitali avanzate per stabilire un nuovo metodo di studio della tecnologia nubiana e dei punti litici. Questo lavoro fornirà una maggiore comprensione dei primi adattamenti umani moderni e delle dispersioni all’interno e all’esterno dell’Africa.
Obiettivo
The project ‘TANKWA, Technological Adaptations of Nubian cores in the Karoo: new geometric morphometric Approaches’ uses innovative digital archaeological methods to investigate human technological adaptations to arid regions during the Middle Stone Age (MSA), a critical period of early human anatomical and behavioural development. Specifically, this will focus on a new late MSA technological variant observed in the arid Karoo region of interior South Africa which uses Nubian technology, a distinctive Levallois method of stone point production more commonly seen in MSA contexts in North Africa, the Levant and Arabia. Using cutting-edge digital Geometric Morphometric techniques, this research will establish a novel method for studying Nubian technology and lithic points, testing the hypothesis that this technology was an adaptive response to the challenges facing hunter-gatherers in an arid environment. The recently discovered open-air site of Tweefontein has a large artefact assemblage offering the ideal opportunity to characterise this technology, complemented by museum study of other South African Karoo sites. The novel approach applied will generate replicable quantitative data that allows the contextualisation of Nubian technology both in the southern African archaeological record and globally, establishing the first inter-regional comparison between Nubian technology in the Levant and South Africa. The training from experts at two international research institutions in Portugal and Israel, together with the applicant’s existing expertise in this under-studied region, culminates in a unique project which advances methods in lithic analysis and contributes to our understanding of early modern human adaptations and dispersals within and outside of Africa from a new perspective.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinatore
8005 139 Faro
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