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，这些变化对于理解在伊斯兰教统治下团结在一起的北非社会的发展至关重要。最近的综合研究，包括联合PI的研究，挑战了长期以来教科书上对罗马统治的崩溃和穆斯林在北非征服的影响的理解，在北非，8世纪和9世纪经常被视为黑暗时代。在von Rummel和Fenwick的指导下，私人投资机构正在突尼斯西北部重要的邻近城市中心Simittus(Chimtou)和Bulla Regia进行挖掘，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。拟议的项目将以这些发现为基础，解决我们对中世纪北非文化、经济和景观变革的理解中的一个根本差距。它超越了古代晚期和中世纪早期城市延续或崩溃的简单问题，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。这将通过跟踪居住模式、景观使用、开采模式和技术的长期变化来评估-在中央梅杰尔达山谷，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、Simittus(Chimtou)、Thunusuda(Bordj Hallal)、Belaris Maior(Henchir El-Faouar)和Vaga(Béja)，进行地形和地球物理调查，以确定适合挖掘的区域。在这次评估之后，将以这些地点为目标，采取系统的抽样战略，旨在恢复分层的物质培养序列和与占领序列相关的高密度动植物遗骸。环境数据将从这些地点的腹地提取，以了解不断变化的气候和环境条件。这些数据将与相关的拉丁文、希腊文和阿拉伯文资料综合起来，以评估穆斯林征服北非、随后的政权更迭和伊斯兰教传播所造成的变革的全面程度。结果将与地中海和伊斯兰世界的更广泛趋势联系起来，这些趋势是“第一个伊斯兰千年”的特征。这一项目最终将使我们对伊斯兰北非的了解有一个根本性的进步，并形成一个可适用于伊斯兰世界其他地区的新的解释框架。

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.