Dissertation Research: Animal Exploitation at Aksum

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Under the direction of Dr. Fiona Marshall, Mr. Chester Cain will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will analyze faunal remains recovered through archaeological excavation from the site of Aksum, the ancient capital of Ethiopia. The process which led to the rise of civilization took place independently in many parts of both Old and New World. Archaeologists work in a comparative context and wish to reconstruct these individual cases in order to compare them and search for underlying processes of cultural development. While some regions of the world such as China, the Near East and Middle America have been the subject of extensive study, others are much less well known. Ethiopia falls within this latter category. Available data indicate that the Ethiopian highlands served as a center for the domestication of such plant species as sorghum and millet (as well as other less well known species) and that the donkey may also have been domesticated in the area. Prehistoric and early historic peoples built cities with impressive stone carved monuments and buildings. During much of the first millennium Aksum served as capital of a widespread empire. Only in the last several years has work at the site been possible and Mr. Cain has participated in the field research. Excavations have yielded large numbers of animal bones, both wild and domestic and these have been recovered in several different social contexts. With National Science Foundation support Mr. Cain will analyze these materials. The study has two goals. First it will provide a list of species consumed and their relative frequencies. On this basis it will be possible to reconstruct diet. Secondly, distribution of species and body part in different portions of the site will be determined. This provides insight into the economic context of consumption and gives some indication of the methods of social control which underlie it. In some instances butchering and distribution of meat is centrally controlled. Animals are butchered in one place the meat distributed to individual household units and this implies a high degree of hierarchical organization. In others cases production essentially takes place on a household level. This research is important for several reasons. It will shed new light on how empires are organized and function. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and assist in training a promising young scientist.