Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Role of Tradition in Cultural Change

在威廉和玛丽学院尼尔·诺曼博士的指导下，马德琳·巴西特将进行考古研究，研究牧民政治经济对非洲之角伊斯兰时期宗教变化的时间和性质的影响。伊斯兰时期(约公元800-1400年)标志着非洲之角的转型时期：在几个世纪的时间里，索马里海岸出现了城市中心，数千名祖籍索马里的牧民皈依了伊斯兰教。以前关于宗教变革的学术研究主要集中在大规模的、久居的农业社会。例如，非洲学者有效地证明了伊斯兰教在东非和印度洋世界历史上的重要性，他们主要关注斯瓦希里海岸的定居社会。通过对吉布提牧民定居点的考古，该项目转而侧重于季节性流动的牧民社会，以及他们的经济网络、政治制度和当地生态系统如何定义宗教转型的条件和限制。最终，这项研究试图回答两个相关的问题：当地行为者如何影响或参与吉布提宗教变革的进程(即时间和性质)？具体地说，当地演员如何通过时间塑造宗教空间的创造和使用？该项目能够很好地解决这些问题，因为它利用考古学方法，能够系统地收集和分析与跨越空间和时间的宗教习俗有关的材料证据。这一项目意义重大，因为它将为了解非洲之角伊斯兰时期宗教变革的进程，以及更广泛地了解流动的牧民社会的宗教变革的性质提供新的线索。宗教和宗教变革的问题在当今世界许多地区都是相关的，而且往往与暴力有关，这项研究的结果有可能解释当今的进程。该项目将通过绘制整个牧区的宗教基础设施的组织和演变图，研究伊斯兰教如何以及何时传播到居住在索马里海岸的季节性流动的牧民社区。它将在吉布提东部进行，那里是伊斯兰教从阿拉伯半岛通过非洲之角传播的重要地区。在诺曼博士的指导下，巴西特将在吉布提东部安布利河流域的一个大型牧民季节性聚集地研究伊斯兰时期建筑和文物的空间和历时模式。这个项目将检验一个假设，即牧民的政治经济--以及他们中心的社会和宗教机构--影响了牧民将伊斯兰教融入他们的日常生活和季节性定居实践的方式。作为东非首次采用光激发发光(OSL)和AMS放射性碳测年相结合的方法测定前伊斯兰时期和伊斯兰时期石头结构的研究，该项目将编制第一个将伊斯兰建筑元素纳入索马里海岸考古遗址的详细年表。通过建立伊斯兰建筑元素的可靠年代顺序，该项目将加强对东非农村牧民社会何时以及如何皈依伊斯兰教的理解，并改进伊斯兰教在非洲传播的一般年表。通过这样做，该项目将对人类学理论作出重大贡献，将宗教变化的研究范围扩大到包括牧民社会及其政治经济。最后，该项目的一个更广泛的影响将是创建一个关于前伊斯兰和伊斯兰时期考古遗址和结构的信息数据库。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Under the supervision of Dr. Neil Norman of the College of William & Mary, Madeleine Bassett will undertake archaeological research to study the impact of pastoralist political economies on the timing and nature of Islamic Period religious change in the Horn of Africa. The Islamic Period (ca. AD 800-1400) marked a time of transformation in the Horn of Africa: In the span of a few centuries, urban centers emerged along the Somali coast and thousands of ancestral Somali pastoralists converted to Islam. Previous scholarship on religious change has centered on large-scale, sedentary agricultural societies. Africanist scholars, for example, have effectively demonstrated the importance of Islam in the history of eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean World, focusing predominantly on the sedentary societies of the Swahili coast. Through the archaeology of pastoralist settlements in Djibouti, this project focuses instead on seasonally mobile pastoralist societies, and the ways in which their economic networks, political systems, and local ecologies defined the conditions and limits of religious transformation. Ultimately, this research seeks to answer two related questions: How did local actors influence or participate in the process (i.e., timing and nature) of religious change in Djibouti? Specifically, how did local actors shape the creation and use of religious spaces through time? This project is well positioned to address these questions because it utilizes archaeological methodologies that allow the systematic collection and analysis of material evidence related to religious practices across space and time. This project is significant because it will shed new light on the process of Islamic Period religious change in the Horn of Africa, and more broadly on the nature of religious change among mobile, pastoralist societies. The issue of religion and religious change is relevant, and often violence related, in many regions of the world today and the results of this research have the potential to shed interpretive light on current day processes.The project will examine how and when Islam spread to seasonally mobile pastoralist communities living along the Somali Coast by mapping the organization and evolution of religious infrastructures across pastoralist landscapes. It will be conducted in eastern Djibouti, an important area in the spread of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula through the Horn of Africa. Under the supervision of Dr. Norman, Bassett will examine the spatial and diachronic patterning of Islamic Period structures and artifacts at a large, pastoralist seasonal aggregation site in the Ambouli River drainage of eastern Djibouti. This project will test the hypothesis that pastoralist political economies - and the social and religious institutions at their center - influenced how pastoralists integrated Islam into their daily routines and seasonal settlement practices. As the first study in eastern Africa to date pre-Islamic and Islamic-Period stone structures using a combination of OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence) and AMS radiocarbon dating methods, this project will develop the first detailed chronology for the integration of Islamic architectural elements into archaeological sites along the Somali coast. By establishing a solid chronological sequence for Islamic architectural elements, this project will bolster understandings of when and how eastern Africa's rural pastoralist societies converted to Islam and improve general chronologies for the spread of Islam in Africa. In so doing, this project will make significant contributions to anthropological theory by extending the scope of research on religious change to include pastoral societies and their political economies. Finally, one broader impact of this project will be the creation of a database of information about pre-Islamic and Islamic Period archaeological sites and structures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.