Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: A Cross Cultural Comparison Of Risk And Adaptation Strategies

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，艾丽西亚·奥德瓦莱女士将进行考古研究，研究与新世界多个地区的新世界奴隶相关的自然和社会挑战。除了从考古学上调查这些社区面临的风险外，研究人员还将比较每个被奴役社区为减轻其环境中的社会和自然危害而采用的策略。这项比较研究采用了混合方法，将奴隶的叙述和原始记录与从生活在环境不同地区的被奴役人民的前住宅空间中恢复的考古证据相结合。这项研究超越了目前的非洲散居奖学金，突出被奴役人民服务于社会的最精英派别的经验，以及揭示这些具体的环境挑战的主要关注的被奴役人民生活在城市岛屿和农村内陆地区的散居地，并比较文化适应的范围不同的被奴役社区用来克服他们面临的挑战。目前的项目对于地球仪上的风险易发社区仍然具有现实意义，因为某些边缘化或土著文化继续受到其无法控制的外部力量的威胁。调查过去使用不同战略来减少外部力量的影响，将为今后如何更好地保护边缘化群体提供新的指导。Alicia Odewale和她的团队将在圣克鲁瓦的Christiansted国家历史遗址内的丹麦西印度和几内亚公司仓库周围进行新的考古调查，并将这些新发现的文物与弗吉尼亚州蒙彼利埃种植园遗产考古部门正在处理的大量材料进行比较。调查人员将根据西印度群岛和弗吉尼亚州被奴役人民的第一手资料，确定每个地区被奴役社区最关心的主要风险并进行排名。四种类型的风险敏感的人工制品类，包括：动物遗骸，金属制品，陶瓷和贸易货物发现在每个站点然后将用于确定可能的文化应对这些挑战，提出了最大的威胁，在每个地区的奴役社区。这项研究的中心问题是，在种植园晚期，这些地点中的哪一个对被奴役的人民来说是一个风险更大的环境。调查人员假设，在加勒比城市环境中存在的社会和自然危害的皇家奴役劳工在圣克鲁瓦将构成一个更大的威胁奴役社区比农村战前种植园环境属于总统奴役劳工在弗吉尼亚州。将被奴役人民的书面文字与考古证据相结合，将对整个非洲移民社群存在的经验多样性进行更知情的研究，并为考古学家、学生和后裔社区提供一个更具包容性的环境，以便共同努力。

With support from the National Science Foundation, Ms Alicia Odewale will conduct archaeological research to examine the natural and social challenges associated with New World slaves in multiple regions within the New World. In addition to archaeologically investigating the risks plaguing these communities, the researchers will also compare the strategies each enslaved community employed to mitigate both social and natural hazards in their environment. This comparative study uses a mixed methods approach, combining the use of slave narratives and primary accounts with archaeological evidence recovered from the former residential spaces of enslaved peoples living in environmentally distinct regions. This research goes beyond current African Diaspora scholarship to highlight the experiences of enslaved peoples serving the most elite factions of society, as well as uncovering those specific environmental challenges of primary concern to enslaved peoples living within urban insular and rural landlocked regions across the Diaspora, and compares the range of cultural adaptations different enslaved communities used to overcome the challenges they faced. The current project remains relevant for risk prone communities across the globe, as certain marginalized or indigenous cultures continue to be threatened by external forces beyond their control. Investigating the use of different strategies to diminish the effects of external forces in the past will present new directives in how to better protect marginalized peoples in the future. Alicia Odewale and her team will conduct new archaeological investigations around the Danish West India and Guinea Company Warehouse inside the Christiansted National Historic Site in St. Croix, and compare these newly recovered artifacts to the extensive material already being processed by the Archaeology Department at the Montpelier Plantation Estate in Virginia. The investigators will identify and rank the primary risks of most concern to the enslaved community in each region from first-hand accounts of enslaved peoples in the West Indies and Virginia. Four types of risk sensitive artifact classes including: faunal remains, metal wares, ceramics and trade goods found at each site will then be used to identify the possible cultural responses to those challenges that presented the greatest threats to the enslaved community in each region. The central question of this study asks which of these sites presents a riskier environment for enslaved peoples during the late plantation era. The investigators hypothesize that the social and natural hazards present in the urban Caribbean environment for the royal enslaved laborers in St. Croix will pose a greater threat to the enslaved community than the rural antebellum plantation environment belonging to the presidential enslaved laborers in Virginia. Combining the written words of enslaved peoples with archaeological evidence will create a more informed study of the diversity of experiences that existed across the African Diaspora and provide a more inclusive environment for archaeologists, students and descendant communities to work together.