Doctoral Dissertation Research: Forests of Power and Memory: An Archaeology of Sacred Groves in the Eguafo Kingdom, Coastal Ghana, c. 1400-1900

在Christopher R.Decorse博士的指导下，Gerard Chouin先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。他将继续他对埃瓜福州的考古和历史研究，这是一个位于加纳沿海的历史政体。Eguafo的景观包括一些神圣的小树林，这些小树林是今天的农业社区公认的精神存在的栖息地。一系列初步调查表明，这种小树林的存在与早期定居点的位置之间存在关联，这些定居点是在15世纪末欧洲人到达西非这一地区之前建立的，可能在17世纪末被遗弃。正如常识经常说的那样，神圣的小树林远非人类退化的原始森林的残存部分，而是考古学家可以研究接触前的沿海社区转变为完全融入大西洋世界的重商主义社会的地点的主要历史和考古标志。这篇论文的目的是：1)了解与考古遗址有关的圣树林的形成、保护和如今加速清理的过程；2)确定和解释与大西洋贸易开放有关的人类占领区域变化的年表。为此，将对研究区内估计有40至60个小树林的样本进行调查。口述历史和民族志观察将被记录下来。将在与调查的圣树林有关的五个安置点进行挖掘。通过对陶器和文物清单的分析，将能够建立一个区域时间序列，并深入了解西非沿海从铁器时代晚期到后欧洲接触时期这一鲜为人知的过渡时期聚落模式、物质文化和社会政治组织的变化。定居点模式变化的年表将被用来批判性地评估“影响”的概念，这一概念主要用于文化接触研究，即由西非贸易中出现的欧洲行为者引起的残酷和迅速的变化。如果确实可以证明，从十五世纪末到十七世纪末，定居点网络(以及贸易路线)与葡萄牙人到达西非之前保持不变，那么必须重新考虑欧洲的存在给西非带来结构突然变化的想法。相反，Chouin先生的研究将有助于理解大西洋贸易的机会和重商主义的逐步采用如何产生内部诱导的社会变革机制。这项研究也很重要，因为它将唤起人们对西非正在发生的对文化资源的大规模破坏的关注，包括考古和圣树林等‘自然’遗址，它将有助于记录和抢救部分濒危遗产。它还将协助一位年轻的社会科学家为对西非森林环境的长期社会变化进行急需的更大规模的历史和考古研究奠定基础。

Under the direction of Dr. Christopher R. DeCorse, Mr. Gerard Chouin will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will continue his archaeological and historical study of the Eguafo State, an historic polity located in coastal Ghana. The landscape of Eguafo includes a number of sacred groves which are patches of tropical forest recognized by today's' farming communities as dwelling places of spiritual beings. A set of preliminary surveys suggest a correlation between the presence of such groves and the location of early settlements founded before the arrival of the Europeans in this part of West Africa in the late fifteenth century and probably abandoned in the late seventeenth century. Far from being surviving patches of virgin forest degraded by people, as common sense often put it, sacred groves are major historical and archaeological markers of sites where the archaeologist can study the transformation of pre-contact coastal communities into a mercantilist society fully integrated in the Atlantic world. The dissertation will aim at 1) understanding the processes that led to the formation, conservation and, nowadays, accelerated clearing of sacred groves in relation to archaeological sites; 2) ascertaining and interpreting the chronology of regional change in human occupation in relation with the opening of the Atlantic trade. To this end, a sample of an estimated forty to sixty groves within the study area will be surveyed. Oral history and ethnographic observations will be recorded. Excavations will be conducted at five settlement sites associated with surveyed sacred groves. Analyzes of ceramics and the artifact inventory, will allow the establishment of a regional chronological sequence and insights into change in settlements patterns, material culture and sociopolitical organization during the little known transition between the Late Iron Age and the period of post-European contact in coastal West Africa. The chronology of change in settlement patterns will be used to critically assess the notion of "impact" that is largely used in culture contact studies in the sense of brutal, rapid change induced by the emergence of European actors in West African trade. If indeed, it can be demonstrated that from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth century, the network of settlements (and therefore trade routes), remained the same as before the Portuguese arrival in West Africa, the idea that the European presence brought about sudden structural change in West Africa will have to be reconsidered. Instead, Mr. Chouin's research will contribute to understanding how the opportunities of the Atlantic trade and the gradual adoption of mercantilism generated internally induced mechanisms of social change. The research is also important because it will call the attention on the on-going massive destruction of cultural resources in West Africa, including archaeological and 'natural' sites such as sacred groves, it will help to document and salvage part of this endangered heritage. It will also assist a young social scientist to lay a foundation for a much-needed larger historical and archaeological study of long-term social change in the West African forest environments.