Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Subsistence and Specialization in the Inland Niger Delta, Mali

在Fiona Marshall博士的指导下，Abigail Smith女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将调查过去流动的牧民群体和城市人口之间的相互关系，重点是jenzim -jeno遗址及其周围景观。约公元前250年至公元1400年，jen<s:1> -jeno是非洲已知最早的城市中心之一。它位于马里内陆尼日尔三角洲极其肥沃的洪泛平原，这使得该地区迅速发展，使居住者能够与该地区的人口建立贸易联系，最终成为新兴的跨撒哈拉贸易的重要一环。游牧人口在非洲有着悠久的历史，并继续成为现代非洲社会的重要组成部分。然而，我们对过去游牧民族和他们定居的邻居之间的关系知之甚少。在西非，牧民的发展轨迹尤其不明朗。考虑到这一信息的缺乏，该项目利用挖掘、动物、考古植物学、地质考古学和同位素分析来确定jen<s:1> jeno -jeno周围地区流动牧群的存在。该研究通过调查这些遗址在长期占领期间的生存性质，将这些畜群置于更广泛的背景下。一个主要的问题是，家畜是由流动的牧民季节性地迁出三角洲，就像今天一样，还是由定居的城市人口全年饲养。该项目是对延恩萨梅-耶诺地区较小遗址的第一次大规模发掘，将提供有关当地变化和占领规模随时间变化的重要资料。作为该地区第一次以生存和专业化为重点的挖掘，该项目将提供有关西非畜牧业和农业发展轨迹的经验数据。这些资料将有助于讨论牧民人口在延恩萨梅-耶诺城市系统中的作用，从而增进对延恩萨梅-耶诺群体间相互作用和政治组织的了解。考虑到与世界其他地区相比，非洲粮食生产的独特轨迹，该项目也可能对我们理解全球畜牧战略和移动-久坐互动的可变性做出重要贡献。与其他世界地区的研究一起，这些信息将有助于将移动-久坐相互作用的理论模型超越近东的配置，这些配置经常被错误地应用于其他世界地区。通过与几名当地学生和马里考古学家合作，该项目将在美国和马里学者之间建立联系，并使专业考古技能和方法得以传播。此外，让当地民众参与的考古调查是保护马里考古遗产的重要手段。对考古遗址的玻璃珠、陶俑和陶瓷的掠夺是马里努力了解和保护其文化遗产的主要障碍。当地和国际考古学家、马里文化部和马里人民的共同努力正在取得巨大进展，但国际学者的持续支持对这一努力至关重要。即使是像这样的小项目，雇佣当地工人，吸引当地学生，并努力使来自研究的信息对非学术公众可用和有趣，也能产生重大影响。最后，通过关注生存和互动，该项目将对与马里大量农业人口合作的发展项目具有潜在的用途。几千年来，人们在萨赫勒半干旱的环境中繁衍生发，考古记录有可能显示在面对各种气候、流行病学、文化和政治变化时，策略和相互作用是如何变化的，为现代提供了有指导意义的信息。

Under the direction of Dr. Fiona Marshall, Ms Abigail Smith will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will investigate the interrelationship between mobile pastoral groups and urban populations in the past, focusing on the site of Jenné-jeno and its surrounding landscape. Jenné-jeno, occupied ca. 250 BCE to CE 1400, is one of Africa's earliest known urban centers. Its location in the extremely fertile floodplains of the Inland Niger Delta, Mali, allowed the site to grow rapidly and enabled occupants to forge trade links with regional populations, eventually becoming a vital cog in the emerging trans-Saharan trade.Pastoral populations have a long history in Africa and continue to be an important part of modern African society. Very little, however, is known about the relationships between pastoral peoples and their sedentary neighbors in the past. In West Africa, pastoral trajectories are particularly unclear. With this dearth of information in mind, this project uses excavation, faunal, archaeobotanical, geoarchaeological, and isotopic analysis to identify the presence of mobile pastoral herds in the area around Jenné-jeno. The study places these herds in broader context by investigating the nature of subsistence at the sites throughout the long period of occupation. A major question is whether domestic herds were moved seasonally out of the delta by mobile pastoralists, as they are today, or kept year-round by a sedentary urban population. This project is the first large-scale excavation of smaller sites in the Jenné-jeno area and will provide important information about local variability and the scale of occupation through time. As the first excavation in the area focusing on subsistence and specialization, this project will provide empirical data about the trajectories of West African pastoralism and agriculture. The information will enable discussion of the role of pastoral populations in the Jenné-jeno urban system, which will increase understanding of Jenné-jeno's intergroup interactions and political organization. Given the unique trajectories of African food production when compared to other world areas, this project could also be an important contribution to our understanding of variability in global pastoral strategies and mobile-sedentary interactions. Along with studies in other world areas this information will help to move theoretical models of mobile-sedentary interactions beyond Near Eastern configurations that too often are misapplied to other world areas.By working with several local students and Malian archaeologists, this project will forge connections between US and Malian scholars and enable the dissemination of specialized archaeological skills and methods. Furthermore, archaeological investigations that engage the local populace are a critical means of preserving Mali's archaeological heritage. Looting of archaeological sites for glass beads, terra cotta figurines, and ceramics is a major obstacle to Mali's efforts to understand and preserve its cultural patrimony. Combined efforts by local and international archaeologists, Mali's Ministry of Culture, and the Malian people are making great strides, but continued support by international scholars is vital in this endeavor. Even small projects like this one that hire local workers, engage local students, and endeavor to make information from the research available to and interesting for a nonacademic public can have a significant impact. Finally, by focusing on subsistence and interactions, this project will be of potential use to development projects working with Mali's vast agricultural population. People have thrived in the semi-arid environment of the Sahel for millennia, and the archaeological record has the potential to show how strategies and interactions shifted in the face of various climatic, epidemiological, cultural, and political changes, providing instructive information for the modern era.