Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Tracing Diversification of Ceremonial Practices

东非的当代社会景观与过去几千年的游牧移民和身份重塑密切相关。博士论文研究员Lorraine Hu将通过研究埋葬习俗的局部变化来研究放牧群体之间社会分化的早期过程。以前关于游牧社会向这一地区传播的学术研究强调经济和生存，侧重于日常生活的各个方面，使畜牧业与定居或狩猎采集生活方式不同。其他文化习俗，虽然更难追溯到深时间，是同样重要的理解群体如何创造和协商流动的社会景观。考古学是装备精良，以提供洞察社会的变化问题，通过跟踪在长期的地方习俗的变化。了解社区如何选择通过维持或改变传统来确定自己的身份，对今天的许多放牧群体具有重要意义，因为全球化进程使身份和生存的界限复杂化。该项目将通过为肯尼亚学生提供培训机会建立伙伴关系，并促进东非和美国的文化遗产教育。圣路易斯华盛顿大学的菲奥娜马歇尔博士和洛林胡将研究东非早期牧民群体丧葬习俗的发展。这项研究将在肯尼亚南部进行，该地区独特的火葬传统在3000-1000年前牧民首次迁移到高地时发展起来。这些早期的牧民已经发展出独特的石器和陶瓷传统，但社区之间的社会差异尚不清楚。丧葬习俗的研究旨在阐明地方性差异。通过结合挖掘，沉积物取样和对以前挖掘的火葬场的骨骼材料的研究，研究人员将重建不同地点的火葬习俗。综合沉积物和骨骼分析允许烟火过程的详细研究，并结合提供了一个新的方法，太平间research.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The contemporary social landscape of East Africa is closely linked to pastoral immigration and the reshaping of identities over the last several millennia. Doctoral dissertation researcher Lorraine Hu will study early processes of social differentiation among herding groups by examining localized variability in burial customs. Previous scholarship on the spread of nomadic societies to this region has emphasized economy and subsistence, focusing on the aspects of daily life that make pastoralism distinct from sedentary or hunter-gatherer lifeways. Other cultural practices, though more difficult to trace in deep time, are equally important to understanding how groups create and negotiate fluid social landscapes. Archaeology is well-equipped to provide insight into questions of social variability by tracing changes in local customs over the long term. Understanding how communities choose to define their own identities through maintaining or changing traditions has relevance for many herding groups today, where processes of globalization complicate boundaries of both identity and subsistence. The project will build partnerships through providing training opportunities for Kenyan students and promote cultural heritage education in East Africa and the USA.Dr. Fiona Marshall and Lorraine Hu of Washington University in St. Louis will examine the development of funerary practices of early pastoralist groups in East Africa. The research will be conducted in southern Kenya where a tradition of cremation, unique to the area, developed between 3000-1000 years ago when herders first migrated into the highlands. These early pastoralists are known to have developed distinct lithic and ceramic traditions, but social variability across communities is yet unknown. Research on funerary customs aims to elucidate localized differences. By combining excavation, sedimentological sampling and study of skeletal material from previously excavated cremation sites, the researchers will reconstruct cremation burial practices from different sites. Integrated sediment and skeletal analyses allow detailed study of pyrotechnic processes, and in conjunction provide a new approach to mortuary research.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.