Collaborative Research: Impact And Accommodation Through Cultural Contact

这项研究的意义在于它记录了文化互动的长期影响，并提供了对指导这一过程及其结果的社会和生物机制的见解。考古学可以提供一个有价值的窗口，了解不同的文化如何相互作用，因为它可以采取长远的观点，并遵循这种过程往往超过世纪长的时间尺度。以遗骸形式存在的生物数据为研究增添了一个新的层面。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，一个由斯图尔特·泰森·史密斯博士和米歇尔·布松博士领导的国际团队，沿着其他专家、学生和当地社区成员，将开展一个生物考古研究项目，调查埃及新王国帝国（约公元前2000年）的影响。公元前1500-1050年），在努比亚上尼罗河第三大瀑布的努比亚Kerma文化。 该项目建立在之前在通博斯的挖掘基础上，这些挖掘记录了埃及移民和当地努比亚人的多民族殖民社区。 挖掘将包括在墓地的精英金字塔领域和以前未开发的解决埋葬。 此外，将探索与当地努比亚克玛文化相关的定居点（Hannek）和墓地（Akkad），以便比较埃及帝国在征服和殖民该地区之前和之后对健康和身份的影响。 本研究超越了传统的殖民遭遇的单向模型，考虑了当地和外国群体的行为。该项目的智力价值是对更大的考古学和人类学研究问题的贡献，这些问题涉及文化间互动的过程，殖民主义以及由此产生的文化纠葛。基于主导核心和从属边缘概念的旧文化适应模型已经越来越多地被更微妙的基于互动的模型所取代，就像这里提出的那样。这个项目将增加一个重要的案例研究，从世界上最早的主要国家之一，将是相关的学者研究类似的动态在不同的地方和时期。多学科生物考古学方法的使用允许通过使用各种类型的数据，包括物质文化，社会习俗，生物关系，地理起源以及健康和疾病的迹象，对这些问题进行全面检查。汤博斯独特的历史背景为阐明埃及帝国在很大程度上仍不为人知的地方影响提供了巨大的潜力，提供了关于当地人民的重要数据，这些人在采用，适应和拒绝不同的文化特征方面发挥了作用，以及努比亚和埃及特征在两个社会中的相互渗透。该项目更广泛的影响包括培训美国和苏丹的学生和研究人员以及促进国际研究合作。该项目人类骨骼遗骸的挖掘和管理将为重要的考古和生物考古数据和收藏品提供安全的存储，并确保未来对这些材料进行研究的机会。拟议研究产生的数据将广泛传播，以便其他研究人员能够查阅。最后，该项目将协助苏丹人民记录因定居和耕种而迅速消失的古代努比亚人生活和文化的证据。在距离通博斯下游仅10公里处建造一座大坝的提议也将严重影响这些遗址，并增加了该项目的紧迫性。

The significance of this research rests on the fact that it documents the long term effect of cultural interaction and provides insight into the mechanisms, both social and biological, which guide this process as well as the resultant outcomes. Archaeology can provide a valuable window to understanding how different cultures interact since it can take a long range perspective and follow such processes often over century long time scales. The presence of biological data in the form of skeletal remains adds an additional dimension to the study. Similar interactions are visible today in multiple regions of the world.With the support of the National Science Foundation, an international team, led by Dr. Stuart Tyson Smith and Dr. Michele Buzon, along with other specialists, students, and local community members will conduct a bioarchaeological research project to investigate the impact of the Egypt's New Kingdom Empire (c. 1500-1050 BC) on the Nubian Kerma Culture at the Third Cataract of the Nile River in Upper Nubia. This project builds on previous excavations at Tombos, which have documented a multi-ethnic colonial community of immigrant Egyptians and local Nubians. Excavation will include burials in the elite pyramid field of the cemetery and the previously unexplored settlement. In addition, a settlement (Hannek) and cemetery (Akkad) associated with the local Nubian Kerma culture will be explored in order to allow for a comparison of Egyptian imperial impacts on the health and identity before and after the conquest and colonization of the area. Moving beyond traditional unidirectional models of colonial encounters, this research considers the actions of both the local and foreign groups.The intellectual merit of the project is the contribution to larger archaeological and anthropological research questions regarding the process of inter-cultural interactions, colonialism, and the cultural entanglements that result. Older acculturation models based upon a notion of dominant core and subordinate periphery have increasingly been replaced with more nuanced interaction based models like the one proposed here. This project will add an important case study from one of the world's earliest primary states that will be of relevance to scholars studying similar dynamics in different places and periods. The use of a multi-disciplinary bioarchaeological approach allows for a holistic examination of these issues through use of various types of data including material culture, social practices, biological relationships, geographic origins, and indications of health and disease. Tombos' unique historical context offers significant potential to shed light on the still largely unknown local impacts of the Egyptian empire, providing important data on the local people who played a role in the adoption, adaptation, and rejection of different cultural traits, as well as the interpenetration of Nubian and Egyptian features in both societies. Further broader impacts of this project include the training of American and Sudanese students and researchers as well as promotion of international research collaboration. The excavation and curation of human skeletal remains from the project will provide secure storage of important archaeological and bioarchaeological data and collections as well as ensure the opportunity for future research on the material. The data produced from the proposed research will be widely disseminated in order to provide access for other researchers. Finally, this project will assist the people of Sudan in documenting the rapidly disappearing evidence of ancient Nubian life and culture resulting from settlement and cultivation. The proposed construction of a dam only ten kilometers downstream from Tombos would also heavily impact the sites and adds additional urgency to this project.