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

国家科学基金会将支持由Michael Frachetti博士监督和Lynne Rouse女士领导的博士论文改进研究，对青铜时代(约公元前2200-1800年)中后期土库曼斯坦穆尔加布三角洲地区流动牧民社区和久居的农学家之间的互动进行考古研究。中亚是一个有着深厚的流动-久坐关系历史的地区，这种关系继续影响着现代社会。中亚作为流动-久坐互动场所的独特历史，经常被用地理和时间上不合适的人类学模型来解释，实际上否认了该地区在当地和区域发展中的重要性。Rouse的项目使用来自土库曼斯坦南部绿洲地区的考古数据来研究青铜时代关键时期流动与久坐的互动，当时独立的流动牧民群体似乎首次与城市和农业社区互动。通过对流动的田园遗迹进行挖掘和调查，该项目将提供急需的数据，以平衡过去40年来以久坐为重点的城市考古研究。通过科学地记录史前流动群体对社会、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差异的关键问题的洞察。在更广泛的理论层面上，记录适应战略在土库曼斯坦南部穆尔加布三角洲的相互作用的影响，为重新评估更广泛的人类学范式提供了一个模式，这些范式通过社会政治权力关系将流动战略和定居战略联系起来，并与有关史前群体间互动和复杂社会政治系统发展的关键人类学问题相联系。该项目将为了解土库曼斯坦和更广泛的中亚地区流动与定居互动的历史提供重要信息。被考查的时期和过程是该地区史前历史上的一个关键转折点，但在西方学术界普遍没有得到承认和研究不足。这在一定程度上是由于土库曼斯坦的现代史，它阻碍了国际学术研究。因此，在现代土库曼斯坦进行的人类学研究相对较少，自20世纪90年代中期以来，没有任何美国人进行过考古研究。拟议的项目侧重于青铜时代穆尔加布三角洲活动-久坐互动的特殊特征，但目的是将这一知识适应于对动态群体互动的形成和维持的更广泛的理解。由于对伊朗、阿富汗和巴基斯坦等关键相关地区的流动与久坐相互作用的研究实际上是当前学术研究的禁区，因此研究土库曼斯坦南部流动与久坐的关系的影响尤其有意义。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，它的影响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.