Conquest, Ecology and Economy in Islamic North Africa: The Example of the Central Medjerda Valley

穆斯林对北非的征服和随后的政权更迭导致了城市化、农业和区域经济的广泛变化，这些变化是理解北非社会发展的基础，团结在伊斯兰教之下。最近的综合研究，包括联合pi的研究，对长期以来对罗马统治崩溃和穆斯林征服北非影响的教科书式理解提出了挑战。在北非，8世纪和9世纪经常被视为黑暗时代。由von Rummel和Fenwick分别指导的pi正在突尼斯西北部重要的邻近城市中心Simitthus （Chimtou）和Bulla Regia进行的挖掘，突出了中世纪时期城市轨迹、技术创新和环境变化的复杂性。拟议的项目将建立在这些发现的基础上，解决我们对中世纪北非文化、经济和景观转变的理解上的根本差距。超越古代晚期和中世纪早期城市延续或崩溃的简单问题，它将调查穆斯林征服和随后的政权更迭在多大程度上代表了经济和社会转型的力量。这将通过追踪居住模式、景观利用、开发模式和技术的长期变化来评估——在梅杰达山谷中部，罗马和伊斯兰非洲著名的粮仓。该项目将评估中世纪时期具有不同轨迹的五个遗址：Bulla Regia、Simitthus （Chimtou）、Thunusuda （Bordj Hallal）、Belalis Maior （Henchir El-Faouar）和Vaga (bsamja)，并进行地形和地球物理调查，以确定合适的挖掘区域。在此评估之后，这些地点将采用系统的采样策略，旨在恢复分层的物质培养序列和与职业序列相关的高密度动植物遗骸。环境数据将从站点的腹地提取，以了解气候和环境条件的变化。这些数据将与有关的拉丁语、希腊语和阿拉伯语资料综合起来，以评估穆斯林征服北非、随后的政权更迭和伊斯兰教的传播所造成的全面转变。研究结果将在地中海和伊斯兰世界更广泛的趋势背景下进行，这是“第一个伊斯兰千年”的特征。这个项目最终将使我们对伊斯兰北非的理解取得根本性的进步，并建立一个新的解释框架，可以应用于伊斯兰世界的其他地区。

The Muslim conquest of North Africa and subsequent regime changes resulted in widespread changes in urbanism, agriculture and regional economies which are fundamental to understanding the development of North African society, united under Islam. Recent synthetic studies, including by the joint PIs, challenge what has long been the textbook understanding of the collapse of Roman rule and the impact of the Muslim conquests in North Africa, in which the eighth and ninth centuries have often been seen as a dark age. Ongoing excavations by the PIs at the important, neighbouring urban centres of Simitthus (Chimtou) and Bulla Regia in NW Tunisia directed by von Rummel and Fenwick respectively, have highlighted the complexity of urban trajectories, technological innovation and environmental change in the medieval period.The proposed project will build on these findings, addressing a fundamental gap in our understanding of cultural, economic and landscape transformations in medieval North Africa. Moving beyond the simple question of urban continuity or collapse in late antiquity and the early medieval period, it will investigate the extent to which the Muslim conquests and subsequent regime change represented a force of economic and social transformation. This will be assessed by tracking long-term changes in settlement patterns, landscape use, patterns of exploitation and technology –in the central Medjerda valley, the famed granary of Roman and Islamic Africa. The project will evaluate five sites with different trajectories in the medieval period: Bulla Regia, Simitthus (Chimtou), Thunusuda (Bordj Hallal), Belalis Maior (Henchir El-Faouar) and Vaga (Béja), conducting topographic and geophysical survey in order to identify suitable zones for excavation. Following this evaluation, the sites will be targeted with a systematic sampling strategy aimed at recovering a stratified material culture sequence and a high density of plant and animal remains associated with occupation sequences. Environmental data will be extracted from the sites’ hinterlands to understand changing climatic and environmental conditions. This data will be synthesized with relevant Latin, Greek and Arabic sources to assess the full extent of the transformation resulting from the Muslim conquest of North Africa, subsequent regime change and the spread of Islam. The results will be contextualized within broader trends in the Mediterranean and the Islamic world which characterize the ‘first Islamic millennium’. This project will ultimately result in both a fundamental advance of our understanding of Islamic North Africa and a new interpretative framework which can be applied to other regions of the Islamic world.