Town and Country: A Regional Study of Swahili Village and Urban Households

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Adria LaViolette博士和她的同事将在坦桑尼亚奔巴岛进行三季的考古发掘，以解决铁器时代城市化背景下斯瓦希里政治经济的变化。公元一千年，斯瓦希里社会以农业、渔业和贸易为基础出现。到了11世纪，被称为石城的经济和政治中心主导了整个东非沿海地区的政治和经济格局。石城商人主导着与非洲内陆和印度洋沿岸大部分地区的长途贸易关系，为斯瓦希里社会的重建奠定了基础。奔巴岛拥有高密度的石城和相关的乡村定居点，为研究新兴城市政体的动态提供了一个独特的地点。一个由美国、坦桑尼亚和欧洲考古学家组成的团队将调查一个彭班政体的家庭和家庭空间，目标是非精英家庭，包括城市和农村，迄今为止在斯瓦希里社会重建中被忽视。选定了三个地点进行密集测试和挖掘。其中包括Chwaka，一个8 -16世纪有人居住的石镇，以及两个可以追溯到8 -9世纪和14 -16世纪的村庄。在这些地点，拉维奥莱特博士和她的合作者将采用一种创新的方法来定位高度短暂的土房子的遗迹。一旦确定，这些家庭遗骸将通过在每个地点进行大规模挖掘来进行调查。这样就可以比较一个地区政体800年来不同经济和社会阶层的家庭聚集情况。对家庭的密切检查将有助于重建斯瓦希里国内经济，包括维持生计、制造业、提供服务以及国内货物的地方和区域流动。以国内经济为目标，为主导斯瓦希里政治经济重建的长期声望经济提供了一种平衡。因此，该项目将重点关注三个问题：非精英农村和城市家庭的生产和消费模式是什么？与他们的精英邻居相比，这种模式如何？如果精英们为了建立和维持社会权力而参与长途贸易，他们是否能够将这些权力的象征转化为经济财富，以及如何转化？在斯瓦希里社会中，国内经济和声望经济之间的关系是什么？该项目对斯瓦希里社会发展的人类学知识有所贡献；撒哈拉以南城市模式和社会经济制度的范围；以及复杂社会中家庭和地区的跨文化研究方法。在关于非洲复杂社会的文献中，这项研究也有助于人们对非洲城市化的独特性和范围的理解。通过探索经济财富和社会权力之间的联系——农业经济和声望经济之间的联系——这个项目将吸引非精英人士、地区和生产参与政治经济和社会复杂性的讨论。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Adria LaViolette and her colleagues will conduct three seasons of archaeological excavations on Pemba Island, Tanzania, to address changes in Swahili political economy in the context of Iron Age urbanism. In the first millennium A.D. Swahili society emerged based on farming, fishing, and trade. By the 11th century economic and political centers, called stonetowns, dominated the political and economic landscape of the entire eastern African seaboard. Stonetown merchants presiding over long-distance trade relationships to the African interior and along much of the Indian Ocean rim have formed the basis of reconstructions of Swahili society. With a high density of stonetowns and associated countryside settlements, Pemba Island offers a unique location to study the dynamics of an emerging urban polity. A team of American, Tanzanian, and European archaeologists will investigate households and domestic spaces in one Pemban polity, targeting non-elite households, both urban and rural, hitherto overlooked in reconstructions of Swahili society. Three sites have been chosen for intensive testing and excavations. These include Chwaka, a stonetown inhabited from the 8th -16th centuries, and two villages that date to the 8th-9th centuries and 14th-16th centuries. At these sites, Dr. LaViolette and her collaborators will institute an innovative approach to locating the remains of highly ephemeral earthen houses. Once identified, these household remains will be investigated through large-scale excavations at each site. This will allow a comparison of household assemblages across economic and social classes within a regional polity over an 800-year period. Close examinations of households will allow the reconstruction of the Swahili domestic economy including subsistence, manufacturing, provision of services, and local and regional movement of domestic goods. Targeting the domestic economy provides a counterbalance to the long-distance prestige economy that has dominated the reconstruction of Swahili political economy. The project will thus focus on three questions: What is the pattern of production and consumption in non-elite rural and urban households and how does this compare to that of their elite neighbors? If elites were involved in long-distance trade for the establishment and maintenance of social power, were they able to convert those symbols of power into economic wealth, and how? And, what is the relationship between the domestic and prestige economies in Swahili society? This project contributes to anthropological knowledge about the development of Swahili society; the range of sub-Saharan urban models and socio-economic systems; and cross-cultural approaches to households and regions within complex societies. Within the literature on African complex societies, this study also contributes to a growing understanding of the uniqueness and range of African urbanisms. By exploring the connection between economic wealth and social power-between agrarian economies and prestige economies-this project will draw non-elite people, places, and production into discussions of political economy and social complexity.