会议名称：2010木文化国际研讨会——古木文化产业和遗产保护与修复
会议时间：2010年10月23日-24日
会议地点：中国·陕西

报告嘉宾：Marion Bamford 
　　　　　副教授　南非威特沃特斯兰大学

报告摘要：

People have been associated with wood throughout time. According to the associated flora and fauna the earliest hominids lived in wooded or forested areas. Later the hominids shifted to drier and more open habitats but never seem to have been far from wooded areas. Evidence comes either directly from the fossilised woods at hominid sites or indirectly from the fossil pollen, phytoliths or the fauna that indicate such an environment. A few examples of the early fossil hominids are given. The oldest putative hominid is Sahelanthropus tchadensis from Tosos-Menalla in the Djurab desert in central Chad. This site is far west of all the other younger sites, dated at about 7 Ma (million years) and was discovered by Michel Brunet and his team about ten years ago. The fauna is diverse and together with fossil wood of lianas indicate a gallery forest adjacent to savanna and close to a desert. Orrorin tugenensis from a site about 6 – 5.8 Ma from the Tugen hills in Kenya is associated with fossil leaves of woodland species as well as fauna of woodland. Several sites containing remains of Ardipithecus ramidus are associated with woodland faunas (ranging from ~ 6 – 4 Ma). Newly described material from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia at 4.4 Ma, has associated silicified wood of Ficoxylon sp. (Moraceae). There is no indication of direct use of the woods by the earliest hominids.

The australopithecines were the first hominids described but are not the oldest. To date there are about four species from South and East Africa and the genus ranges from about 4.2 to 2.4 Ma. Australopithecus afarensis bones and footprints from Laetoli show that it was bipedal (~4-3.5 Ma). From adjacent sites silicified wood has been recovered and includes species of Acacia (Mimosaceae), Schrebera (Oleaceae), Dichapetalum (Dichapetalaceae), Sterculiaceae, Euphorbiaceae and other Fabaceae. These indicate the regional vegetation. Australopithecus africanus bones and fossil wood fragments were found together in the caves at Sterkfontein (3-2.3 Ma) in South Africa where they had fallen in and been preserved. The calcified wood is of a liana Dichapetalum mombuttense (Dichapetalaceae) and a shrub Anastrabe intergerrima (Scrophulariaceae) indicating riverine or gallery forest. Paranthropus boisei and Homo habilis from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, are found in ashfall, fluvial and lacustrine sediments on the edge of palaeolake Olduvai. The associated vegetation shows trees, shrubs and marshland plants from silicified macro-remains, pollen and phytoliths. Again these indicate the environment and available food sources but no direct use of wood is evident. However the models show that the hominids used the trees as refugia from carnivores competing for carcasses. On the east of lake Turkana at Koobi Fora there is an abundance of silicified wood from the Upper Burgi and Okote Members (2-1.5 Ma) comprising riverine and savanna species. Only the vegetation can be inferred, no direct use of the wood.

The oldest clear evidence of a wooden artefact from Africa is from the spring mound at Florisbad, Free State, South Africa. A piece of wood with one end showing working to a flat edge, made from Zanthoxylum chalybeum (Rutaceae), was found in the same level as the skull of Homo helmei, dated at 259 000 years. Charcoal in open air occupation sites or cave sites is good evidence of use of wood by later hominids and humans. The oldest examples of charcoal are from a cave deposit in the northern Cape, South Africa, Wonderwerk. The cave was occupied from ~ 2 Ma to the present. Charcoal is abundant in the hearths in the middle layers (Acheulean) but occurs as far down as layer 12, dated at 1.96 – 1.78 Ma (Palaeomagnetic dating; Olduvai Normal). 

Middle Stone Age blade and bladelet tools were made by soft hammer percussion with wooden billets (for example of Dalbergia melanoxylon, Fabaceae). The wooden billets have not survived but the tools are very abundant and known as Howisons Poort technology (~ 67-57 000 year ago). Charcoal is common in many modern human occupation sites and more recently in iron smelting and forging sites in both East and South Africa. Cultural use of wood appears to the activity of humans rather than hominids.