Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Ancient Murghab Archaeology Project: Perspectives on Bronze Age Interaction in southern Turkmenistan

美国国家科学基金会将支持博士学位。论文改进研究将由Michael Frachetti博士监督，由Lynne Rouse女士进行，对青铜时代中期至晚期土库曼斯坦穆尔加布三角洲境内移动的牧民社区和定居的农民之间的相互作用进行考古研究（约200年）。公元前2200 - 1800年）。 中亚是一个有着悠久的移动-定居关系历史的地区，这种关系继续影响着现代社会。 中亚作为移动-定居互动中心的独特历史经常被解释为使用地理和时间上不合适的人类学模型，有效地否认了该地区在地方和区域发展中的重要性。Rouse的项目使用土库曼斯坦南部绿洲地区的考古数据，研究关键的青铜时代时期的移动-定居互动，当时独立的移动的牧民群体似乎首次与城市，农业社区互动。通过对移动的田园遗迹的挖掘和调查，该项目将提供急需的数据，以平衡过去四十年以城市为重点的定居考古研究。通过科学地记录史前移动的群体对社会、政治和经济轨迹的实际贡献，该项目提供了对中亚早期绿洲社区经济变化关键问题的深入了解。在更广泛的理论层面上，记录土库曼斯坦南部穆尔加布三角洲适应性战略相互作用的影响为重新评估更广泛的人类学范式提供了一个模型，这些范式通过社会政治权力关系将移动的和定居战略联系起来，并与关于群体间互动和复杂社会关系增长的关键人类学问题联系在一起，这一项目将为土库曼斯坦和更广泛的中亚地区流动与定居互动的历史背景提供重要信息。这一时期和进程是该地区史前史的一个重要转折点，但在西方学术界普遍不被承认和研究不足。这部分是由于土库曼斯坦的现代历史阻碍了国际奖学金。 因此，在现代土库曼斯坦进行的人类学研究相对较少，自1990年代中期以来，没有任何美国人进行过考古研究。拟议的项目侧重于在青铜时代穆尔加布三角洲的移动-久坐互动的特点，但旨在适应这一知识的形成和维护动态群体互动的更广泛的理解。由于在关键相关地区（如伊朗，阿富汗和巴基斯坦）研究移动-久坐互动实际上是目前学术界的禁区，因此研究土库曼斯坦南部移动-久坐关系的影响特别有意义。由于这项研究关注的是影响每个参与者群体的经济、社会和政治生活的互动过程，因此其含义与现代世界的复杂互动直接相关。

The National Science Foundation will support Ph.D. dissertation improvement research to be overseen by Dr. Michael Frachetti and conducted by Ms. Lynne Rouse in an archaeological study of interaction between mobile pastoralist communities and sedentary agriculturalists in the territory of the Murghab Delta, Turkmenistan during the middle to late Bronze Age (ca. 2200-1800 BC). Central Asia is a region with a deep history of mobile-sedentary relationships that continues to influence modern society. The unique history of Central Asia as a locus of mobile-sedentary interaction has often been interpreted using geographically and temporally inappropriate anthropological models, effectively denying this region its significance in local and regional developments. Rouse's project uses archaeological data from oasis regions of southern Turkmenistan to examine mobile-sedentary interaction in the pivotal Bronze Age period, when independent groups of mobile pastoralists appear to interact with urban, agrarian communities for the first time. Through excavation and survey targeting mobile pastoral remains, this project will provide much needed data to balance the urban, sedentary-focused archaeological research of the last forty years. By scientifically documenting the actual contribution of prehistoric mobile groups to social, political, and economic trajectories, the project offers insight into key issues of economic variation in early oasis communities of Central Asia. At a wider theoretical level, the impact of documenting the interplay of adaptive strategies in Murghab Delta of southern Turkmenistan provides a model for reassessing broader anthropological paradigms that link mobile and sedentary strategies through socio-political power relationships, and ties into key anthropological questions regarding inter-group interactions and the growth of complex socio-political systems in prehistory.This project will provide important information for contextualizing the history of mobile-sedentary interaction in both Turkmenistan and wider Central Asia. The period and processes under examination are a crucial turning point in the prehistory of the region, but are generally unrecognized and understudied in Western scholarship. This is due in part to the modern history of Turkmenistan, which has discouraged international scholarship. As such, there has been relatively little anthropological research carried out in modern Turkmenistan, and no archaeological research carried out by any American since the mid-1990s. The proposed project focuses on the particular characteristics of mobile-sedentary interaction in the Bronze Age Murghab Delta, but aims to fit this knowledge into broader understandings of the formation and maintenance of dynamic group interactions. Because study of mobile-sedentary interactions in key related areas - such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - is effectively off-limits to current scholarship, examining the impact of mobile-sedentary relationships in southern Turkmenistan is especially meaningful. And because this study focuses on a process of interaction that affected the economic, social, and political life of each participant group, its implications are immediately relevant to the complex interactions of the modern world.