The Archaeological Signatures of Empire: Excavations and Survey at the Iron Age Fortress of Oglanqala, Azerbaijan

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，劳伦·里斯特维特博士将对阿契美尼德（波斯）帝国的帝国主义性质及其对阿塞拜疆Naxçývan当地社区的影响进行为期三年的考古调查。该团队将汇集来自美国、阿塞拜疆、意大利和英国的考古学和物理学专家，在Naxçývan沙鲁尔平原的o - zu lanqala要塞进行调查和挖掘。大约公元前800年开始，o - lang - qala可能是一个地方政治的中心，后来被纳入阿契美尼德帝国（公元前550-330年）的北部边界。因此，该地区为研究阿契美尼德帝国的帝国和经济战略提供了一个绝佳的机会。学者们认为阿契美尼德帝国是古代近东帝国主义的巅峰，也是后来地中海和中东帝国的典范，包括罗马和萨珊波斯。然而，在伊朗西部腹地之外，人们对这个帝国的考古知之甚少，直到最近，一些学者才开始质疑这个帝国的存在。过去二十年来，在伊朗、安纳托利亚、高加索和中亚的发掘提供了新的数据，证实了帝国的存在和范围，但其帝国性质及其短暂影响的原因仍有待分析。阿契美尼德帝国中心是如何与当地居民互动的？帝国主义是如何改变财富的生产和消费的？在新的帝国框架下，地方精英是如何协商权力的？为了研究o - lanqala阿契美尼德帝国主义的本质，研究人员将通过挖掘、多仪器地球物理调查、卫星图像分析、地面调查、考古植物学、动物考古学、土壤微形态学、陶瓷分析和3D GIS构建来测试四种地方和帝国相互作用的模型。研究将考察帝国主义如何改变这个省中心和沙鲁尔平原的空间使用，并通过分析帝国主义如何影响o - lanqala的陶瓷和农业生产、消费和分配来确定帝国主义的经济和文化影响。该项目的学术价值在于，通过探索一个结合了“霸权”和“领土”战略的帝国的实际运作，它能够将对帝国主义的理论理解超越二分定义。这种对互动、文化适应和身份建构的研究为其他现代和古代帝国的类似辩论提供了一个比较的视角。该项目还将开发一个三维地理信息系统，将来自调查、挖掘和分析的数据结合起来，帮助调查人员将他们的研究跨学科地联系起来，并在一定范围内对空间、政治权力和经济生产之间的关系有一个广泛的了解。这项研究将为这个地区提供重要的信息，在这个鲜为人知的历史时期，该地区缺乏任何重大的调查工作。因此，它将填补近东和欧亚考古学的重大空白，并为在这个充满活力的地区对帝国主义的学术理解的重大修订提供基础。来自几个机构的美国和阿塞拜疆的本科生和研究生将参加实地考察，以获得适合21世纪调查的跨学科培训，并提高他们对阿塞拜疆考古学的了解。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Lauren Ristvet will conduct a three-year archaeological investigation into the nature of imperialism in the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire and its effects on local communities in Naxçývan, Azerbaijan. The team will bring together experts in archaeology and physics from the US, Azerbaijan, Italy, and England to conduct surveys and excavations at the fortress of Oðlanqala, in the Sharur plain of Naxçývan. Oðlanqala probably served as the center of a local polity beginning about 800 B.C., and later became incorporated into the northern frontiers of the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC). The area offers, therefore, an extraordinary opportunity to investigate the imperial and economic strategies of the Achaemenid Empire.Scholars recognize the Achaemenid Empire as the apogee of Ancient Near Eastern imperialism and as a model for later Mediterranean and Middle Eastern empires, including Rome and Sassanian Persia. Yet so little is known about the archaeology of this empire outside its Western Iranian heartland that until recently some scholars questioned the empire's very existence. Excavations in Iran, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia during the last twenty years provided new data affirming the existence and extent of the empire, but its imperial nature and the reasons for its ephemeral impact still await analysis. How did imperial Achaemenid centers interact with local populations? How did imperialization change the production and consumption of wealth? How did local elites negotiate power in a new imperial framework? To investigate the nature of Achaemenid imperialism at Oðlanqala, researchers will test four models of local and imperial interaction through excavation, multiple instrument geophysical survey, satellite imagery analysis, surface survey, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, soil micromorphology, ceramic analysis and 3D GIS construction. Research will examine how imperialism transformed the use of space at this provincial center and in the Sharur plains and will define the economic and cultural impact of imperialism by analyzing how it affected ceramic and agricultural production, consumption, and distribution at Oðlanqala. The intellectual merit of the project lies in its ability to move theoretical understandings of imperialism beyond dichotomous definitions, by exploring the actual operation of an empire that combined "hegemonic" and "territorial" strategies. This investigation of interaction, acculturation, and identity-building provides a comparative perspective for similar debates in other modern and ancient empires. The project will also develop a three-dimensional GIS that incorporates data from surveys, excavations, and analyses to help investigators connect their research across disciplines, and to create a broad understanding of the relationship between space, political power, and economic production at a range of scales. The study will provide significant information about a region that has lacked any major investigative work during a little-known historical period. It will thus fill a major gap in Near Eastern and Eurasian archaeology and provide the basis for major revisions in the scholarly understanding of imperialism in this dynamic region. U.S. and Azerbaijani undergraduate and graduate students from several institutions will participate in the fieldwork to gain interdisciplinary training in techniques appropriate to 21st century investigations and enhance their knowledge of the archaeology of Azerbaijan.