1997 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
RECONSTRUCTIVE STUDY OF LATE STONE AGE HUNTING AND GATHERING SOCIETY ON SERENGETI,TANZANIA
| Project/Area Number |
07041002
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for international Scientific Research
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | Field Research |
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| Research Field |
考古学(含先史学)
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| Research Institution | INSTITUTE OF HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY,UNIV.OF TSUKUBA |
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Principal Investigator |
NISHIDA Masaki INST.OF HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY,UNIV.of TSUKUBA,Professor, 歴史・人類学系, 教授 (60088549)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
マブラ オグックス ダルエスサラーム大学, 講師
SPRAGUE David INST.OF HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY,UNIV.of TSUKUBA,Lecturer, 歴史・人類学系, 講師 (90282285)
MABULA Audax DEPT.OF HISTORY,UNIV.OF DAR ES SALAAM,Lecturer
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| Project Period (FY) |
1995 – 1997
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| Keywords | SAVANNA / SERENGETI / LATE STONE AGE / SURFACE SURVEY / DISTRIBUTION MAP / GIS / GPS / REMOTE-SENSING |
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| Research Abstract |
Information on present-day hunter-gatherer societies is essential for understanding prehistoric human society. However, hunter-gatherer peoples have interacted in recent history with agricultural and pastoral societies, and may not be appropriate models of past societies. This research project attempts to reconstruct the hunter-gatherer societies that existed prior to contact with agricultural and pastoral peoples. To achieve this goal, this project attempted to find the distribution of late stone age artifacts scattered on the surface within the Serengeti National Park of Tanzania, and developed a method to reconstruct the spatial and resource utilization pattern of the hunter-gatherer societies of up to 10,000 years ago.
In 3 years of field research, the project collected surface artifacts and recorted the topography, vegetation, and soils characteristics from 126 50m x 50m sample boxes and over 200 sample points, with all positions measured by GPS.Over 10,000 artifacts collected were
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taken back to Tsukuba University for analysis. These data are being entered into a GIS database.
The following points have been discovered :
1. Cultural artifacts from the past several hundred thousand yeras, from the early stone age up to the metal age, scattered on the surface throughout the Serengeti National Park. The density of late to middle stone ages are especially high.
2. Quartzite is the most common material of the early and middle stone age artifacts. Quartz and obsidian are the materials for the late stone age materials.The obsidian was probably brouht in from the Rift Valley area.
3. The density of artifacts is approximately 10,000 artifacts per square kilometer.
4. The sample boxes contained from zero to more than 500 items.
5.Artifacts sometimes were concentrated near rocks that block the strong winds. These may have been frequently used camp sites.
6. Artifact concentrations were especially high near rivers and ponds.
Even in locations far from surface water, some artifacts could be found at low densities.
These points will be further investigated to achieve the research objectives. Less
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Research Products
(3 results)
