资讯
来源：www.culture24.org.uk
时间：2017年2月9日
翻译：汐莫
校对：Amy
整理：大古
链接：http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2017/pebbles-used-as-spatulas-to-decorate-the-dead-12000-years-ago
卵石在分析期间被修复。 （图片来源：蒙特利尔大学）
一项关于意大利旧石器时代晚期墓葬遗迹中海洋卵石工具的最新国际研究表明：人类会仪式性地“杀死”某物来去除它们的有象征意义的力量，这种做法比之前设想的出现时间早大约5000年。
蒙特利尔大学（ Université de Montréal）、亚利桑那州立大学（ Arizona State University）和热那亚大学（University of Genoa）的研究人员检查了29块从地中海沿岸利古亚地区（Liguria）的Arene Candide洞穴【1】 中出土的卵石碎片。研究结果发表在《剑桥考古杂志》(Cambridge Archeological Journal)，他们在文中总结道：12000年前，人们在海边捡回光滑的椭圆形卵石，当做抹刀把赭石灰涂抹在死者的遗体上作为装饰，之后再将它们打碎、丢弃。
“这种做法的目的可能是要‘杀死’工具，从而‘去除它们的象征力量’，因为物体已经和死者产生了联系”，蒙特利尔大学的人类学副教授、研究论文的合作者以及指导出土这种卵石的遗址的发掘工作的朱利恩·瑞尔-塞尔瓦托(Julien Riel-Salvatore)说道。
2011年，Claudine Gravel-Miguel和考古学家Vitale Stefano Sparacello 在Arene Candide 遗址工作。（图片来源：蒙特利尔大学）
Arene Candide遗址是一个如曲棍球场般大小【2】的洞穴，葬有约20具成人和儿童遗体。洞穴位于高于海平面90米的险峻崖壁上，俯视着一处石灰石采石场。20世纪40年代，人们首次对洞穴进行了大范围发掘。这个洞穴被认为是西地中海地区具有参考性的新石器和旧石器时代遗址。然而，人们直到现在才注意到这些破碎的卵石。
“如果我们的理解是正确的，那我们便把在仪式中故意打碎物体这种做法的最早证据推早了5000年”，此项研究的第一作者、坦佩亚利桑那州立大学人类进化与社会变迁学博士研究生Claudine Gravel-Miguel说，“在这之后的最早证据可追溯至欧洲中部的新石器时代，距今约8000年。而我们的断代则距今约11000至13000年，那时，利古里亚地区的人们还处于狩猎采集阶段。”
一种与死者的联系
没有发现与破碎卵石相合的碎片，这驱使着研究者们猜测下落不明的那一部分石块可能被作为护身符或者纪念品了。“它们（碎片）可能表示了一种与死者的联系。同样地，现代人也可能会分享友情饰品，或在死去的爱人的墓上放一个物品”，瑞尔-塞尔瓦托说，“这和情感联系一样。”
在2008年至2013年期间，在Arene Candide洞穴，研究者们煞费苦心的用小型铲和牙科工具在紧靠原发掘地的东边区域进行发掘，还用显微镜分析他们在那里找到的卵石。他们还走遍了附近的海滩，搜寻看上去差不多的卵石，并把它们打碎来看看是否能与遗址中的卵石相比较，试着断定遗址的卵石是否是被故意打碎的。
一块4厘米长的卵石的使用演示。（图片来源：蒙特利尔大学）
“这说明破碎遗物可能具有的象征意义尚未被充分解读”，新研究总结道，“关于旧石器时代葬礼的研究不应只局限于葬礼本身，也应该研究从附近地点找回来的材料。因此，正如我们在这里展示的一样，有时像碎石片一样简单的人工制品能帮助我们获得有关史前葬礼的新发现。”
这些发现对其它出土了带赭色涂料卵石的旧石器遗址的调查有一定影响，如西班牙北部、法国南部派而利山的阿齐尔遗址（Azilian sites）【3】。发掘中出土的碎卵石常常被忽视，所以，或许还值得回去再看一看它们，瑞尔-塞尔瓦托说。
“以往，考古学家不曾真正注意到这些东西——如果他们在遗址看到了这些，他们通常会说‘哦，这有个普通卵石’，之后便把它和剩下的沉积物一起丢掉”，他说，“我们需要开始注意这些东西，虽然它们经常只被称作是石头。那些看上去好像是自然形成的石头实际上却可能是有重要意义的人工制品。”
注释
【1】Arene Candide洞穴：一处位于意大利的利古里亚，有史前遗存的洞穴。
【2】曲棍球场的面积约5027平方米。
【3】阿齐尔遗址（Azilian sites）：一处旧石器时代末期中石器时代初期的遗址
英文原文：
Pebbles used as spatulas to decorate the dead 12,000 years ago
Pebbles were refitted during analysis. Image: Université de Montréal
Humans may have ritualistically “killed” objects to remove their symbolic power, some 5,000 years earlier than previously thought, a new international study of marine pebble tools from an Upper Palaeolithic burial site in Italy suggests.
Researchers at Université de Montréal, Arizona State University and University of Genoa examined 29 pebble fragments recovered in the Caverna delle Arene Candide on the Mediterranean Sea in Liguria. In their study, published in the Cambridge Archeological Journal, they concluded that some 12,000 years ago the flat, oblong pebbles were brought up from the beach, used as spatulas to apply ochre paste to decorate the dead, then broken and discarded.
The intent could have been to “kill” the tools, thereby “discharging them of their symbolic power” as objects that had come into contact with the deceased, said the study’s co-author Julien Riel-Salvatore, an associate professor of anthropology at UdeM who directed the excavations at the site that yielded the pebbles.
Claudine Gravel-Miguel is with anthropologist Vitale Stefano Sparacello at the Arene Candide site in 2011. Image: Université de Montréal
The Arene Candide is a hockey-rink-sized cave containing a necropolis of some 20 adults and children. It is located about 90 metres above the sea in a steep cliff overlooking a limestone quarry. First excavated extensively in the 1940s, the cave is considered a reference site for the Neolithic and Palaeolithic periods in the western Mediterranean. Until now, however, no one had looked at the broken pebbles.
“If our interpretation is correct, we’ve pushed back the earliest evidence of intentional fragmentation of objects in a ritual context by up to 5,000 years,” said the study’s lead author Claudine Gravel-Miguel, a PhD candidate at Arizona State’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, in Tempe. “The next oldest evidence dates to the Neolithic period in Central Europe, about 8,000 years ago. Ours date to somewhere between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago, when people in Liguria were still hunter-gatherers.”
A link to the deceased
No matching pieces to the broken pebbles were found, prompting the researchers to hypothesize that the missing halves were kept as talismans or souvenirs. “They might have signified a link to the deceased, in the same way that people today might share pieces of a friendship trinket, or place an object in the grave of a loved one,” Riel-Salvatore said. “It’s the same kind of emotional connection.”
Between 2008 and 2013, the researchers painstakingly excavated in the Arene Candide cave immediately east of the original excavation using small trowels and dental tools, then carried out microscopic analysis of the pebbles they found there. They also scoured nearby beaches in search of similar-looking pebbles, and broke them to see if they compared to the others, trying to determine whether they had been deliberately broken.
Rendition of a 4-cm-long pebble in use. Image: Université de Montréal
“This demonstrates the underappreciated interpretive potential of broken pieces,” the new study concludes. “Research programs on Palaeolithic interments should not limit themselves to the burials themselves, but also explicitly target material recovered from nearby deposits, since, as we have shown here, artefacts as simple as broken rocks can sometimes help us uncover new practices in prehistoric funerary canons.”
The findings could have implications for research at other Palaeolithic sites where ochre-painted pebbles have been found, such as the Azilian sites in the Pyrenee mountains of northern Spain and southern France. Broken pebbles recovered during excavations often go unexamined, so it might be worth going back and taking a second look, said Riel-Salvatore.
“Historically, archeologists haven’t really looked at these objects – if they see them at a site, they usually go ‘Oh, there’s an ordinary pebble,’ and then discard it with the rest of the sediment,” he said. “We need to start paying attention to these things that are often just labeled as rocks. Something that looks like it might be natural might actually have important artifactual meaning.“
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