Savannah Valley Frontier Project

萨凡纳谷边境项目

• 批准号: 0852686
• 负责人: Charles Cobb
• 金额: $ 15.03万
• 依托单位: University South Carolina Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-01-01 至 2012-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0852686&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Savannah; Valley; Frontier; Project

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Charles Cobb will conduct archaeological research on colonial-era Native American towns along the Savannah River in South Carolina and Georgia, USA. His team will focus on indigenous migration to the Savannah drainage (which became part of the southern frontier of the Carolina colony in the late 1600s) and resulting patterns of material hybridity as Native groups began to incorporate and modify European practices and material culture. The establishment of Charleston in AD 1670 spawned a massive wave of Native American population movement, as groups attempted to physically situate themselves to take advantage of highly lucrative trade partnerships with the English. This movement led to a string of settlements along the Savannah River south of Charleston, where large numbers of deerskins were bartered to English traders in exchange for a wide range of European goods. An important dimension of the migration was the variety of Native American homelands involved. Towns along the Savannah River were founded by the Chickasaw from Mississippi, Creek groups from Alabama and Georgia, and the Yuchi from Tennessee, to name just a few. In addition, English trading outposts grew alongside these towns. As a result, the Savannah River region evolved into a frontier characterized by considerable ethnic diversity, and in many respects was a staging ground for the melting-pot metaphor we associate with the United States today. The research will involve two seasons of archaeological fieldwork at a town occupied by Apalachicola Native Americans who migrated from southern Georgia; field survey to identify additional towns along the Savannah River; and re-analyses of collections made from earlier excavations at two towns. Ethnohistorical research will complement the archaeological investigations as Cobb and his collaborators will use colonial documents and maps to identify town locations and reconstruct European descriptions of Native American lifeways in those towns. The research questions are directed at evaluating (1) the ecological and subsistence adjustments involved in the uprooting from one location to another as groups migrated to the Carolina frontier, and (2) how Native Americans selectively incorporated elements of European material culture and practices into their cultures. The project's intellectual merit is based on its examination of how migration into frontiers led to the formation of hybridized patterns of material culture as groups learned to accommodate to very distinct worldviews from their own. Traditional views of the North American frontier have construed it as a wave of advance, where indigenous migration consisted of a retreat from European colonial settlements. The Savannah Valley Frontier Project promotes a more nuanced view of these processes that is in line with current anthropological theory, where indigenous groups contributed to the formation of borderlands through migrations and activities strongly shaped by their own volition.The broader impacts of the study build on the considerable history of the archaeology of colonialism that has been conducted at the University of South Carolina. The research will actively integrate undergraduate participation and outreach to Native American communities through an archaeological field school operated through the USC Lancaster Native American Studies Program. Graduate students will be directly involved as graduate research assistants, and they and other graduate and undergraduate students will be encouraged to adopt aspects of the project for thesis and dissertation research.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，查尔斯·科布博士将对美国南卡罗来纳州和佐治亚州萨凡纳河沿岸的殖民时代美洲原住民城镇进行考古研究。他的团队将重点研究向萨凡纳流域（1600 年代末成为卡罗莱纳殖民地南部边境的一部分）的土著移民，以及随着土著群体开始融入和修改欧洲实践和物质文化而产生的物质混合模式。公元 1670 年查尔斯顿的建立引发了一场大规模的美洲原住民人口流动浪潮，这些群体试图在当地定居，以利用与英国人的高利润贸易伙伴关系。这一运动导致查尔斯顿以南萨凡纳河沿岸出现了一系列定居点，大量鹿皮在那里与英国商人进行易货贸易，以换取各种欧洲商品。移民的一个重要方面是所涉及的美洲原住民家园的多样性。萨凡纳河沿岸的城镇是由来自密西西比州的契卡索人、来自阿拉巴马州和佐治亚州的克里克部落以及来自田纳西州的鱼池人等建立的。此外，英国的贸易前哨也与这些城镇一起发展。结果，萨凡纳河地区演变成一个具有相当多种族多样性的边疆，并且在许多方面是我们今天与美国联系在一起的熔炉隐喻的集结地。该研究将在一个由来自佐治亚州南部移民的阿巴拉契科拉美洲原住民居住的小镇进行两季的考古实地考察；进行实地调查，以确定萨凡纳河沿岸的其他城镇；并对两个城镇早期发掘的藏品进行了重新分析。民族历史研究将补充考古调查，科布和他的合作者将使用殖民文献和地图来确定城镇位置，并重建欧洲人对这些城镇中美洲原住民生活方式的描述。研究问题旨在评估（1）当群体迁移到卡罗莱纳州边境时，从一个地方迁徙到另一个地方所涉及的生态和生存调整，以及（2）美洲原住民如何有选择地将欧洲物质文化和实践的元素融入到他们的文化中。该项目的智力价值基于其对边疆移民如何导致物质文化混合模式形成的研究，因为群体学会了适应与自己截然不同的世界观。北美边境的传统观点将其视为一波前进浪潮，其中土著移民包括从欧洲殖民定居点撤退。萨凡纳谷边境项目促进了对这些过程的更细致的看法，这符合当前的人类学理论，即土著群体通过由自己的意志强烈影响的迁徙和活动，为边境地区的形成做出了贡献。这项研究的更广泛影响建立在南卡罗来纳大学进行的殖民主义考古学的相当长的历史基础上。该研究将通过南加州大学兰开斯特美洲原住民研究项目运营的考古实地学校，积极整合本科生的参与和对美洲原住民社区的推广。研究生将作为研究生研究助理直接参与，并鼓励他们和其他研究生和本科生采用该项目的某些方面进行论文和论文研究。