Dissertation Research: Animal Exploitation at Aksum

在Fiona Marshall博士的指导下，Chester Cain先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。他将分析通过考古发掘在埃塞俄比亚古都阿克苏姆遗址发现的动物遗骸。导致文明兴起的过程在旧世界和新世界的许多地方独立发生。考古学家在一个比较的背景下工作，希望重建这些个案，以便比较它们，并寻找文化发展的潜在过程。虽然世界上一些地区，如中国、近东和中美洲，一直是广泛研究的主题，但其他地区的知名度要低得多。埃塞俄比亚属于后一类。现有资料表明，埃塞俄比亚高地是高粱和小米（以及其他不太为人所知的物种）等植物的驯化中心，驴也可能在该地区被驯化。史前和早期历史上的人们建造了令人印象深刻的石刻纪念碑和建筑的城市。在第一个千年的大部分时间里，阿克苏姆是一个庞大帝国的首都。直到最近几年才有可能在现场工作，凯恩先生参加了实地研究。挖掘出土了大量的动物骨头，既有野生的，也有家养的，这些骨头在几个不同的社会背景下被发现。在国家科学基金会的支持下，凯恩先生将分析这些材料。这项研究有两个目标。首先，它将提供一份消耗的物种及其相对频率的列表。在此基础上，将有可能重建饮食。其次，确定物种和身体部位在场地不同部位的分布。这提供了对消费的经济背景的洞察，并给出了一些社会控制方法的指示，其基础是消费。在某些情况下，肉类的屠宰和分销是由中央控制的。动物在一个地方被屠宰，肉被分发给个体家庭单位，这意味着高度的等级组织。在其他情况下，生产基本上是在家庭层面上进行的。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将揭示帝国是如何组织和运作的。它将提供许多考古学家感兴趣的数据，并帮助培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Fiona Marshall, Mr. Chester Cain will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will analyze faunal remains recovered through archaeological excavation from the site of Aksum, the ancient capital of Ethiopia. The process which led to the rise of civilization took place independently in many parts of both Old and New World. Archaeologists work in a comparative context and wish to reconstruct these individual cases in order to compare them and search for underlying processes of cultural development. While some regions of the world such as China, the Near East and Middle America have been the subject of extensive study, others are much less well known. Ethiopia falls within this latter category. Available data indicate that the Ethiopian highlands served as a center for the domestication of such plant species as sorghum and millet (as well as other less well known species) and that the donkey may also have been domesticated in the area. Prehistoric and early historic peoples built cities with impressive stone carved monuments and buildings. During much of the first millennium Aksum served as capital of a widespread empire. Only in the last several years has work at the site been possible and Mr. Cain has participated in the field research. Excavations have yielded large numbers of animal bones, both wild and domestic and these have been recovered in several different social contexts. With National Science Foundation support Mr. Cain will analyze these materials. The study has two goals. First it will provide a list of species consumed and their relative frequencies. On this basis it will be possible to reconstruct diet. Secondly, distribution of species and body part in different portions of the site will be determined. This provides insight into the economic context of consumption and gives some indication of the methods of social control which underlie it. In some instances butchering and distribution of meat is centrally controlled. Animals are butchered in one place the meat distributed to individual household units and this implies a high degree of hierarchical organization. In others cases production essentially takes place on a household level. This research is important for several reasons. It will shed new light on how empires are organized and function. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and assist in training a promising young scientist.