摘要
火的使用在人类进化过程中发挥了非常重要的作用。学术界对于人类使用火的历史与过程做了大量的研究,检验古人类遗址区域是否发生过燃烧事件的技术手段也在不断地进步。通过对南非开普敦Wonderwerk洞穴、以色列Qesem洞穴、北京周口店猿人洞以及湖北黄龙洞等地古人类用火相关文献的系统调研和归纳总结,认为探讨一个遗址是否存在古人类主动用火时,首先要获取该遗址的文化考古和地层资料,确定是否曾发生过燃烧事件,然后分析是何物质发生燃烧,以及与人类活动的联系。分析表明,目前还没有任何单一的方法可以确定更新世早期的古人类用火信息,多种方法的结合才可能得到比较准确的结论。选择宏观形态分析初步判断有火活动的区域,利用傅立叶红外光谱(FTIR)、元素碳含量分析等地球化学手段确定火事件发生的确切证据,再利微观形态及微地层分析对完整沉积物进行系统研究以揭示其就地用火的可能性,从而形成古人类用火的完整证据链。由于碳稳定同位素在植被、气候与人类活动相互联系方面的广泛应用,在古人类用火研究引入这一技术手段,可为该领域提供新的研究方法和思路。
The use of fire has played a very important role in the process of human evolution. The academic community has done a lot of research on the history of human use of fire, with improving technique and methods. The systematic investigation and summary of related literatures on ancient human fire from Wonderwerk cave, Cape Town, South Africa, Qesem cave, Zhoukoudian in Beijing and Huanglong cave in Hubei Province, have been processed. It is found that the cultural and archaeological data of sites should be obtained firstly to determine whether fire events had ever happened, and then what fuels have been burned and how did the events related with human activities. We suppose that there is no single method to determine the information on Hominin control of fire in the early-mid Pleistocene, and a combination of multiple methods is necessary to get more accurate conclusions. Selecting macroscopic morphological analysis including hearth, and/or burning bones, and/or burning stones to preliminarily judge the area of fire activities, followed by using FTIR, elemental carbon content analysis and other geochemical methods including magnetic susceptibility and color measurements to determine the exact evidence of fire events, and then using micro-morphological and micro-stratigraphic analysis to systematically study the complete sediments to reveal the possibility of in-situ fire. At present, hominid control of fire in those sites we mentioned above is believed to have been occurred. Due to the usual lack or disturbance of those macroscopic morphological and/or micro-morphological evidences, stable carbon isotopes of elemental carbon should be a beneficial supplementary technique, which has been widely applied in studying the relationships among vegetation, climate and human activities. The introduce of stable carbon isotopes into hominin fire research can provide new aspects in this field.
作者
胡圆峰
周斌
庞洋
徐向春
Hu Yuanfeng;Zhou Bin;Pang Yang;Xu Xiangchun(Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Geochemistry,Ministry of Education,School of Earth Sciences and Engineering,Nanjing University,Nanjing 210023,Jiangsu)
出处
《第四纪研究》
CAS
CSCD
北大核心
2019年第1期240-257,共18页
Quaternary Sciences
基金
国家重大科学研究计划全球变化研究项目(批准号:2015CB953804)
青岛海洋科学与技术国家实验室开放基金资助项目(批准号:MGQNLM-KF201704)
江苏省基础研究计划自然科学基金面上项目(批准号:BK20171340和BK20150065)共同资助.
关键词
古人类用火
旧石器时代
地球化学证据
炭屑
元素碳/黑碳
碳同位素
hominin control of fire
Paleolithic
geochemical burning evidence
charcoal
elemental carbon(black carbon)
stable carbon isotope