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

在Adria LaViolette博士的监督下，林恩科普林将在肯尼亚海岸的Gede指导考古发掘工作，她正在那里为博士论文进行研究。 该项目考察了11 - 16世纪斯瓦西里石城遗址的泥土和茅草住宅建筑领域的社会分化。 由于考古学家主要集中在这些大型建筑混合遗址的石头组成部分，目前对大多数人的活动，饮食和物质文化知之甚少，地球上的居民，通常被认为是未分化的非精英。 拟议的研究将比较频率和空间组织的工艺品生产，饮食和财富之间的石头和地球和茅草组件的同一个城镇，以期阐明社会分化内的地球和茅草地区。 当人们更好地理解非石器社区的活动和商品分布时，生产和消费的空间变化可能暗示着社会分化的轴心，并以此来追踪时间上的社会重组。考古学家试图阐明撒哈拉以南非洲地区社会复杂性的本土形式时，关注遗址内部变化（表现为考古学上可恢复的生产和消费形式）的必要性是非常重要的。 这一点尤其重要，因为它关系到斯瓦希里社会，直到最近，这一问题还被归咎于外部因素。 这项研究是一个新的动力的一部分，在更大的层面上，在非洲内部寻找非洲社会的构成动力，在斯瓦希里语网站上，一般来说，这需要通过检查被忽视的大多数人来拆除社会的单一概念，那些在非石头上的人。 超越斯瓦希里考古学的水平，这项研究借鉴并将有助于东非铁器时代，复杂社会，空间组织和活动领域的兴起考古文献。伴随着盖德的建立、发展、收缩和废弃的变化，与非洲大陆上更大的铁合金风化史相吻合，非洲考古学家们也渴望填补这些活动的规模，如陶器制作、贸易增加、专业化生产、农业和其他促进社会扩张的食物来源。 此外，对土制建筑社区组织原则的初步了解将参与人类学关于空间组织的辩论。

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.