Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant-The Archaeology of Swahili Social Differentiation: Earth-and-Thatch Neighborhoods at Gede, Kenya, 11th-16th Centuries AD

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Under the supervision of Dr. Adria LaViolette, Lynn Koplin will direct archaeologicalexcavations at Gede on the Kenyan coast, where she is conducting researchfor her doctoral dissertation. The project examines socialdifferentiation in areas of earth-and-thatch domestic architecture at themajor 11th-16th-century Swahili stonetown site. Because archaeologists haveprimarily concentrated on the stone components of these large,architecturally-mixed sites, currently little is known about activities,diet and material culture among the majority, the inhabitants of earthendwellings, often assumed to have been undifferentiated non-elites. Theproposed research will compare frequency and spatial organization of craftproduction, diet and wealth between stone and earth-and-thatch components ofthe same town, with a view to elucidating social differentiation withinearth-and-thatch areas. When the distribution of activities and goods innon-stone neighborhoods are better understood, spatial variation inproduction and consumption may suggest axes of social differentiation, withwhich to trace social reorganization through time.The need to focus on intrasite variation, expressed inarchaeologically-recoverable forms of production and consumption, isimportant as archaeologists attempt to elucidate indigenous forms of socialcomplexity in sub-Saharan Africa. This is especially important as itrelates to Swahili society, which until recently was attributed to externalfactors. This research is part of a new impetus on a larger level to searchwithin Africa for the constitutive dynamics of African societies, and onSwahili sites in general this requires dismantling monolithic conceptions ofthe society by examining the overlooked majority, those in non-stonedwellings. Beyond the level of Swahili archaeology, this research draws onand will contribute to archaeological literature on the East African IronAge, rise of complex societies, spatial organization and activity areas. The changes that accompanied the foundation, growth, contraction andabandonment of Gede fit into the larger history of the Iron Ageefflorescence on the continent, and Africanist archaeologists are attemptingto fill out the magnitude of activities such as pottery making, increasedtrade, specialized production, farming and other foodways that accompaniedsocial expansion. Additionally, preliminary insights into the principlesorganizing neighborhoods of earthen architecture will engage theanthropological debates on spatial organization.