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博士的指导下，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的景观包括许多神圣的小树林，这些小树林是热带森林的斑块，被今天的农业社区视为精神生物的居住地。一系列初步调查表明，这些小树林的存在与15世纪末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相关性，这些定居点可能在17世纪末期被遗弃。人们通常认为，圣林不是被人类退化的原始森林，而是重要的历史和考古标志，考古学家可以在这里研究接触前的沿海社区向完全融入大西洋世界的重商主义社会的转变。本论文的目的是：1)了解与考古遗址有关的圣林形成、保护和如今加速清理的过程；2)确定和解释与大西洋贸易开放有关的人类活动的区域变化年表。为此目的，将对研究区域内估计有40至60个树林的样本进行调查。口述历史和民族志观察将被记录下来。挖掘工作将在与被调查的圣林有关的五个定居点进行。通过对陶瓷和文物的分析，可以建立一个区域时间顺序，并深入了解西非沿海地区在铁器时代晚期和后欧洲接触时期之间鲜为人知的过渡时期的聚落模式、物质文化和社会政治组织的变化。定居模式变化的年表将用于批判性地评估“影响”的概念，这一概念主要用于文化接触研究中，指的是西非贸易中欧洲行动者的出现所引起的残酷、迅速的变化。如果确实可以证明，从15世纪末到17世纪末，定居点网络（因此贸易路线）与葡萄牙人到达西非之前保持相同，那么欧洲人的存在带来了西非突然的结构变化的观点将不得不重新考虑。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渐采用是如何产生内部诱发的社会变革机制的。这项研究也很重要，因为它将引起人们对西非文化资源正在遭受的大规模破坏的关注，包括考古和“自然”遗址，如圣林，它将有助于记录和挽救部分濒危遗产。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亟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.