Tracing Connections: Chemical composition analysis of archaeological pottery as indicator of interregional contacts in Western and Saharan Africa before AD 1300

该项目的主要目标是通过对陶器的化学成分进行全面分析，得出公元1至2千年早期考古地区与西非和撒哈拉非洲地区之间区域间接触的公正证据。到目前为止，非洲内部区域间接触的考古学研究主要依赖于对声望商品或所谓的异国情调（例如，玻璃珠）以客观的方式追踪这种连接。例如，一些迄今为止经过检查的文物似乎证实了书面资料的建议，即西非和撒哈拉的各种主要历史地点-例如，加奥、Essouk-Tadmekka和Marandet曾经通过北非的贸易路线相互连接。然而，除此之外，我们对这些地方与更广泛地区的其他地方的互动仍然知之甚少，要么是因为没有关于这种交通的书面来源，要么是因为缺乏异国情调或没有分析。拟议的项目从纯粹的异国情调分析中走出来，通过证明陶器作为该时期考古遗址中最常见的人工制品类别，同样完全适合于追踪邻近地区遗址和地区之间的联系。事实上，申请人的初步工作表明，考古陶器的化学成分分析是一个强有力的工具，甚至可以突出迄今为止未知的区域间联系。该项目旨在发现一个研究区域内潜在的区域间互动，该区域包括北部的利比亚撒哈拉、西部的中尼日尔河谷和东部的乍得湖盆地。

The main goal of the project is to generate unbiased evidence of interregional contacts between archaeological areas and regions in western and Saharan Africa during the 1st to early 2nd millennia AD by means of comprehensive analyses of the chemical composition of pottery. Thus far, archaeological studies of interregional contacts within Africa have mainly relied on the archaeometric analysis of prestige goods or so-called exotica (e.g., glass beads) to trace such connections in an objective manner. For instance, a number of hitherto examined artifacts appear to corroborate the suggestions from written sources that various major historical places in West Africa and the Sahara – e.g., Gao, Essouk-Tadmekka and Marandet – were once connected to each other through trade routes from/to North Africa. Beyond this, however, we are still poorly informed about the interaction of those places with others in the wider region, either because there are no written sources on such traffic or because exotica are lacking or were not analyzed. The proposed project steps down from the pure analysis of exotica by demonstrating that pottery, as the most frequent artifact class in archaeological sites of the period, is equally fully suitable for tracing connections between sites and areas from adjacent regions. In fact, preliminary work by the applicant has shown that chemical composition analysis of archaeological pottery is a powerful tool for even highlighting thus far unknown interregional connections. The project intends to uncover potential interregional interactions within a research area encompassing the Libyan Sahara to the north, the Middle Niger Valley to the west and the Lake Chad Basin to the east.