Collaborative Research: Negotiating identity and building the landscape: 3rd millennium BC mortuary traditions in Bronze Age Oman

合作研究：协商身份和建设景观：公元前三千年阿曼青铜时代的太平间传统

• 批准号: 1318019
• 负责人: Lesley Gregoricka
• 金额: $ 8.27万
• 依托单位: University of South Alabama
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-07-01 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1318019&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Negotiating; identity; building

With support from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Kimberly Williams and Lesley Gregoricka will conduct three field seasons of bioarchaeological and geospatial research on Early Bronze Age (ca. 3100-2000 BC) mortuary sites in northern Oman. This study seeks to investigate shifts in mortuary traditions over time -- including (a) the construction of monumental tombs, (b) the geographic origins of the individuals interred within these structures, and (c) tomb placement on the landscape -- as a reflection of changing perceptions of rural identity in response to growing interregional interaction with urban areas. As a highly visible burial center at the crossroads of these interregional trade routes, the Al Khubayb Necropolis provides a unique opportunity to examine these temporal changes during a formative period of transition in the Oman Peninsula, in part by recognizing the importance of Transitional tomb forms.The research objective is to evaluate these tombs as symbols of the changing socioeconomic roles of these Early Bronze Age communities, as rural areas increasingly engaged with large urban centers to provide them with much-desired resources, including copper. As engagement in interregional exchange networks increased, local social hierarchies would have developed, causing conflict between traditional, kin-based tribal factions and those with increasing power over aspects of trade and monument construction. Such conflict in group identity will be visible in the form of conflicting mortuary customs simultaneously attempting to promote and suppress social differentiation. This study also posits that increasingly complex exchange networks will result in significant variability in strontium and oxygen isotopic signatures (incorporated via diet into the teeth of the individuals who lived and died in the Early Bronze Age), not only because of increased regional mobility between the interior of the peninsula and the coast (due to the mining and transport of copper), but also because of emerging interregional economic ties with the larger Persian Gulf. Correspondingly, this project seeks to identify broader shifts in isotopic variation between early and later periods as a correlate of regional and interregional mobility associated with changing forms of social organization and definitions of group identity.The goal of this research program is to provide new perspectives on the question of identity formation in the periphery. This will be accomplished not by focusing on the intensively studied end-points of trade, such as Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, but in the hinterlands of Oman, where goods were actively processed and trade carried out. Much research in the past has focused on the interaction of large, core power brokers with one another; this research will be transformative because of its focus on a relatively invisible rural people, whose existence as semi-nomadic pastoralists is poorly understood. As opposed to viewing changing mortuary and mobility patterns as wholly defined by the influence of interregional exchange with urban areas including Mesopotamia, such an approach takes agency into account by focusing on the adaptations of local communities to the social hierarchies that developed from exposure to these trade systems. The broader impacts of this study include the education and training of local Omanis as part of building a more successful program of archaeological heritage in Oman. Additionally, this project is committed to increasing student diversity and providing learning and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. Students will not only receive training in bioarchaeological field techniques but will also be involved in all aspects of inquiry, including sample preparation, chemical and geospatial analysis.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，金伯利威廉姆斯博士和莱斯利格雷戈里卡将进行三个季节的生物考古和地理空间研究早期青铜时代（约。公元前3100-2000年）阿曼北方的太平间遗址。本研究旨在调查殡葬传统随着时间的推移发生的变化-包括（a）建造纪念性坟墓，（B）埋葬在这些结构中的个人的地理起源，以及（c）坟墓在景观中的位置-反映了农村身份的变化，以应对日益增长的区域间与城市地区的互动。作为这些区域间贸易路线十字路口的一个高度可见的墓葬中心，Al Khubayb墓地提供了一个独特的机会来研究阿曼半岛过渡形成时期的这些时间变化，部分原因是认识到过渡时期墓葬形式的重要性。研究目标是评估这些墓葬作为这些早期青铜时代社区不断变化的社会经济角色的象征，随着农村地区越来越多地与大城市中心接触，为他们提供急需的资源，包括铜。 随着区域间交流网络的增加，地方社会等级制度也会发展起来，导致传统的、以亲属为基础的部落派系与那些在贸易和纪念碑建设方面拥有越来越大权力的部落派系之间发生冲突。这种群体认同的冲突将以相互冲突的丧葬习俗的形式出现，这些习俗同时试图促进和抑制社会分化。这项研究还假定，日益复杂的交换网络将导致锶和氧同位素特征的显著变化（通过饮食融入青铜时代早期生活和死亡的个人的牙齿中），这不仅是因为半岛内部和海岸之间的区域流动性增加（由于铜矿的开采和运输），但也因为与更大的波斯湾正在出现的区域间经济联系。相应地，本研究项目旨在确定早期和晚期之间同位素变化的更广泛变化，作为与社会组织形式变化和群体身份定义相关的区域和区域间流动性的相关性。本研究项目的目标是为边缘地区身份形成问题提供新的视角。要做到这一点，不能把重点放在经过深入研究的贸易终点，如美索不达米亚和印度河流域，而要放在阿曼的内陆地区，在那里，货物得到了积极的加工，贸易也得到了开展。过去的许多研究侧重于大型核心权力经纪人之间的互动;这项研究将具有变革意义，因为它侧重于相对不为人知的农村人口，人们对他们作为半游牧牧民的存在知之甚少。与将变化中的丧葬和流动模式视为完全由与城市地区（包括美索不达米亚）的区域间交流的影响所决定不同，这种方法考虑到了机构因素，侧重于地方社区对因接触这些贸易系统而形成的社会等级制度的适应。 这项研究的更广泛影响包括教育和培训当地阿曼人，作为在阿曼建立更成功的考古遗产计划的一部分。此外，该项目致力于增加学生的多样性，并为本科生和研究生提供学习和研究机会。学生不仅将接受生物考古领域技术的培训，还将参与调查的各个方面，包括样品制备，化学和地理空间分析。