Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Food Practices and Memory in Banda, Ghana, AD 1000-Present

在卡拉·西诺波里博士的指导下，阿曼达·洛根将在加纳中西部的班达地区进行考古研究。在安·b·斯塔尔（Ann B. Stahl）博士的指导下，该领域以前和正在进行的工作记录了班达在过去一千年中日益与全球体系纠缠在一起的几个转变。主要的政治经济变化包括从撒哈拉到大西洋的长途贸易的重新定位，被阿散蒂和大英帝国占领，以及向市场经济的过渡，每一次都使人们接触到各种新的作物和生存方式。洛根将调查人们如何在政治经济的每一次转变中将新作物纳入日常实践，通过记录1)新作物和相关技术被纳入的过程，2)这些变化的速度和程度，以及3)它们是否与政治经济和环境条件的变化相关。从洛根在2009年进行的一项关于生活记忆中食物变化的民族考古学研究开始，她将在时间上向后移动，绘制食物实践的变化和连续性，以重建食物实践的“谱系”或历史。人种学访谈将与四个考古遗址的长期变化记录联系起来，这些考古遗址是长期班达研究项目的一部分，描绘了大约公元1000年至1920年的政治经济背景，并提供了可比较背景的考古植物学样本。古民族植物学的最新方法论发展提供了追踪食品加工实践的手段，允许将食品变化作为一个历史社会过程进行检查。提供资金支持对考古植物遗骸（宏观遗骸、植物岩、淀粉粒和木炭）和热释光日期的分析。这项研究将有助于人类学和考古学的讨论，通过观察新的食物是如何在地方层面上重新语境化，围绕生存变化的本质。这很重要，因为食物不仅是人类生存的基本要素，而且还提供了一个考古标记，可以追踪社会是如何变化的，以及它们是如何适应新文化影响的。它提供了一个窗口来理解为什么有些新的影响被接受，有些被拒绝，有些被修改以适应新的文化环境。由于连续的一系列外部接触及其极其多样化的性质，班达为这种研究提供了一个极好的地理区域。这个问题与当今世界上许多发展中地区有关，这些地区的粮食系统已经并正在受到全球压力的影响，因此这项研究对当今的问题具有潜在的应用价值。研究结果可能对发展机构有用，它们对生存变化的长期影响和方向以及与政治和环境压力的关系表示关切。

Updated Abstract for Award #1041948Under the direction of Dr. Carla Sinopoli, Amanda Logan will conduct archaeological research in the Banda region of west central Ghana. Previous and ongoing work in the area under the direction of Dr. Ann B. Stahl has documented several shifts over the last millennium AD as Banda became increasingly entangled in the global system. Major political economic changes include a reorientation of long-distance trade from across the Sahara to the Atlantic, takeover by the Asante and British empires, and the transition to market economies, each of which exposed people to a variety of new crops and subsistence practices. Logan will investigate how people incorporated new crops into daily practice during each of these shifts in political economy by documenting 1) the processes by which new crops and accompanying techniques were incorporated, 2) the rate and extent of such changes, and 3) whether or not they correlate with shifts in political economic and environmental conditions. Beginning with an ethnoarchaeological study of food change within living memory that Logan conducted in 2009, she will move backwards in time, mapping change and continuity in food practices in order to reconstruct "genealogies" or histories of food practice. Ethnographic interviews will be linked with longer records of change from four archaeological sites excavated as part of the long term Banda Research Project, which delineate the political economic backdrop from ca. AD 1000-1920, and provide archaeobotanical samples from comparable contexts. Recent methodological developments in paleoethnobotany provide the means to trace food processing practices over time, allowing for an examination of food change as an historical social process. Funds are provided to support analysis of archaeobotanical remains (macro-remains, phytoliths, starch grains, and charcoal) and thermoluminescence dates. This research will contribute to anthropological and archaeological discussions surrounding the nature of subsistence change by looking at how new foods are recontextualized at the local level. This is important because food is not only an essential element for human survival but it also provides an archaeological marker to trace how societies are altered and how they adapt to new cultural influences. It provides a window into understanding why some new influences are accepted, others rejected, and some modified to fit into a new cultural milieu. Because of the successive series of external contacts and their extremely varied nature Banda provides an excellent geographical region for such research. The issue is relevant in many developing regions of the world today whose food systems have been and are being impacted by global pressures, and thus the research has potential application to present day issues. The results will potentially be useful to development agencies, who express concern for long-term affects and directions of subsistence change and the relationship to political and environmental pressures.