Doctoral Dissertation Research: Forests of Power and Memory: An Archaeology of Sacred Groves in the Eguafo Kingdom, Coastal Ghana, c. 1400-1900

在Christopher R. DeCorse，Gerard Chouin先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。他将继续对位于加纳沿海的历史政体埃瓜福州进行考古和历史研究。Eguafo的景观包括一些神圣的格罗夫斯，这些是今天的农业社区公认的热带森林，是精神存在的居住地。一系列初步调查表明，这种格罗夫斯的存在与15世纪晚期欧洲人到达西非这一地区之前建立的早期定居点的位置之间存在着相关性，这些定居点可能在世纪晚期被遗弃。圣格罗夫斯远非人们通常所说的被人类破坏的原始森林的幸存者，而是考古学家可以研究接触前沿海社区转变为完全融入大西洋世界的商人社会的主要历史和考古标志。本论文的目的是1）了解导致形成，保护和，今天，加速清除神圣的格罗夫斯在考古遗址的过程; 2）确定和解释人类占领的区域变化的年表与大西洋贸易的开放。为此，将对研究区域内估计40至60个格罗夫斯进行抽样调查。将记录口述历史和人种学观察结果。将在五个与所调查的圣格罗夫斯有关的定居点进行调查。分析陶瓷和文物库存，将允许建立一个区域的时间顺序和洞察力的变化，在定居点模式，物质文化和社会政治组织在鲜为人知的过渡期晚铁器时代和后欧洲接触在西非沿海。定居模式的变化年表将被用来批判性地评估“影响”的概念，这是主要用于文化接触研究的意义上的残酷，快速变化引起的欧洲演员在西非贸易的出现。如果确实可以证明，从世纪末到17世纪末，定居点网络（以及贸易路线）与葡萄牙人到达西非之前保持不变，那么欧洲人的存在给西非带来了突然的结构性变化的想法就必须重新考虑了。相反，Chouin先生的研究将有助于理解大西洋贸易的机会和重商主义的逐步采用如何产生内部引起的社会变革机制。这项研究也很重要，因为它将引起人们对西非文化资源持续大规模破坏的关注，包括考古和“自然”遗址，如神圣的格罗夫斯，它将有助于记录和抢救这一濒危遗产的一部分。它还将协助一名年轻的社会科学家为对西非森林环境的长期社会变化进行急需的更大规模的历史和考古研究奠定基础。

Under the direction of Dr. Christopher R. DeCorse, Mr. Gerard Chouin will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will continue his archaeological and historical study of the Eguafo State, an historic polity located in coastal Ghana. The landscape of Eguafo includes a number of sacred groves which are patches of tropical forest recognized by today's' farming communities as dwelling places of spiritual beings. A set of preliminary surveys suggest a correlation between the presence of such groves and the location of early settlements founded before the arrival of the Europeans in this part of West Africa in the late fifteenth century and probably abandoned in the late seventeenth century. Far from being surviving patches of virgin forest degraded by people, as common sense often put it, sacred groves are major historical and archaeological markers of sites where the archaeologist can study the transformation of pre-contact coastal communities into a mercantilist society fully integrated in the Atlantic world. The dissertation will aim at 1) understanding the processes that led to the formation, conservation and, nowadays, accelerated clearing of sacred groves in relation to archaeological sites; 2) ascertaining and interpreting the chronology of regional change in human occupation in relation with the opening of the Atlantic trade. To this end, a sample of an estimated forty to sixty groves within the study area will be surveyed. Oral history and ethnographic observations will be recorded. Excavations will be conducted at five settlement sites associated with surveyed sacred groves. Analyzes of ceramics and the artifact inventory, will allow the establishment of a regional chronological sequence and insights into change in settlements patterns, material culture and sociopolitical organization during the little known transition between the Late Iron Age and the period of post-European contact in coastal West Africa. The chronology of change in settlement patterns will be used to critically assess the notion of "impact" that is largely used in culture contact studies in the sense of brutal, rapid change induced by the emergence of European actors in West African trade. If indeed, it can be demonstrated that from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth century, the network of settlements (and therefore trade routes), remained the same as before the Portuguese arrival in West Africa, the idea that the European presence brought about sudden structural change in West Africa will have to be reconsidered. Instead, Mr. Chouin's research will contribute to understanding how the opportunities of the Atlantic trade and the gradual adoption of mercantilism generated internally induced mechanisms of social change. The research is also important because it will call the attention on the on-going massive destruction of cultural resources in West Africa, including archaeological and 'natural' sites such as sacred groves, it will help to document and salvage part of this endangered heritage. It will also assist a young social scientist to lay a foundation for a much-needed larger historical and archaeological study of long-term social change in the West African forest environments.