OasCiv: Making Oasis Civilisation in the Moroccan Sahara

近几十年来，撒哈拉史前和新石器时代的岩石艺术吸引了相当多的考古学关注，但相比之下，原始历史和中世纪的定居和活动阶段被忽视了。由于缺乏考古调查、古代资料的偏见证词和现代学者对柏柏尔人（阿马齐格人）不加批判的假设，对撒哈拉沙漠古代人口的了解仍然受到限制。除了PI在利比亚南部对一个叫Garamantes的人的研究之外，对这些社会的实地调查几乎是完全缺乏的，特别是对西撒哈拉的社会。我们最近在摩洛哥-西撒哈拉瓦迪德拉（Wadi Draa）的最早绿洲农业和定居定居点的前伊斯兰起源的论证挑战了一个长期持有的模型，该模型将西撒哈拉的前伊斯兰人口定性为基本上是游牧的牧民，并否认了中世纪早期“阿拉伯人”征服北摩洛哥和穆斯林投资撒哈拉贸易之前绿洲的演变。第一批绿洲的建立日期要早得多，这标志着一个重大的范式转变。我们提出的项目旨在调查在公元第一个千年负责这种转变的原历史社会的特征。中世纪早期摩洛哥撒哈拉人民的故事也被忽视了，但对北非第一个伊斯兰国家（8 -10世纪）和中世纪伟大的Almoravids和Almohads帝国（11 -13世纪）的出现具有最高的意义。这些运动始于涉及摩洛哥南部绿洲社区的复兴运动，但由于缺乏可靠的考古数据，伊斯兰文明的撒哈拉和阿马齐格根源从未得到充分评估。因此，该项目试图重新评估在罗马/中世纪早期摩洛哥出现的定居农业和城市化国家的内生阿马齐格群体的贡献。该项目将通过对最近在瓦迪德拉发现的史前和中世纪定居点、墓地和农业景观进行首次科学发掘，确定复杂社会是如何以及为什么在撒哈拉以南地区出现的。我们认为，绿洲社会的出现对于理解撒哈拉贸易网络和伊斯兰帝国（如11世纪的Almoravids）随后如何建立至关重要。我们的试点调查已经证明了研究的潜力，揭示了保存完好的景观和数百个与Draa早熟绿洲发展有关的定居遗址。下一阶段的工作将确切地调查这种情况是如何以及何时发生的。它将为理解古代撒哈拉人口提供一个新的范式，并为迄今为止独特的（可能是例外的）加拉曼特人作为一个早熟的撒哈拉国家级社会的案例研究提供一个急需的平衡。通过提供关于摩洛哥撒哈拉地区历史民族的第一批可靠数据集，这一开创性项目将促进对史前和中世纪阶段的认识和理解，并与北非及其他地区关于定居、城市化和国家形成、移民、技术、贸易和连通性等更广泛的辩论相交叉。这项工作将揭示这些关键社会发展的撒哈拉特殊性。使用跨学科的方法，我们将调查这些沙漠人口的古经济，技术能力，社会组织和宗教和宗教习俗。四个挖掘季节将针对一系列不同的考古遗址，以说明这些社会，经济和信仰体系的各个方面。对存在于撒哈拉沙漠牧区的绿洲文明的探索，不仅标志着一项根本性的科学进步，也标志着一项超越学术界的重大发现。

Saharan prehistory and Neolithic rock art has attracted considerable archaeological attention in recent decades, but the Protohistoric and Medieval phases of settlement and activity are neglected by comparison. Knowledge of the ancient populations of the Sahara remains constrained by lack of archaeological investigation, the biased testimonies of the ancient sources and the uncritical assumptions of modern scholarship about Berber (Amazigh) peoples. Apart from the PI's work in S Libya on a people called the Garamantes, there has been an almost complete lack of field investigation of these societies, especially those of the W Sahara. Our recent demonstration of pre-Islamic origins of the earliest oasis agriculture and sedentary settlements in the Wadi Draa in the Moroccan W Sahara challenges a long-held model that has characterised the pre-Islamic populations of the W Sahara as essentially nomadic pastoralists and denied the evolution of oases there before the early Medieval 'Arab' conquest of N Morocco and Muslim investment in Saharan trade. This much earlier date for the establishment of first oases marks a major paradigm shift. Our proposed project seeks to investigate the character of the Protohistoric societies responsible for this transformation in the first millennium AD. The early Medieval story of the peoples of the Moroccan Sahara is also neglected, but of the highest significance to the emergence of the first Islamic states in N Africa (8th-10th centuries) and the great Medieval empires of the Almoravids and Almohads (11th-13th centuries). These began as revitalisation movements involving the oasis communities of S Morocco, but, for lack of robust archaeological data, the Saharan and Amazigh roots of Islamic civilisation have never been fully evaluated. This project thus seeks to re-evaluate the contribution of endogenous Amazigh groups to the emergence of sedentary farming and urbanised states in Morocco during the Roman/early Medieval eras.This project will identify how and why complex societies emerged in the W Sahara by conducting the first scientific excavations of Protohistoric and Medieval settlements, cemeteries and farming landscapes recently discovered in the Wadi Draa. We argue that the emergence of oasis societies is critical to understanding how Saharan trading networks and Islamic empires such as the 11th-century Almoravids were subsequently established. The research potential has been demonstrated by our pilot survey, revealing well-preserved landscapes and hundreds of sedentary sites linked to precocious oasis development in the Draa. The next phase of work will investigate exactly how and more precisely when this occurred. It will put 'flesh on the bones' of a new paradigm for understanding the ancient Saharan populations and provide a much needed counterbalance for the hitherto unique (and possibly exceptional) case study of the Garamantes as a precocious Saharan state-level society. By providing the first robust data-sets on the historic peoples of the Moroccan Sahara, this pioneering project will advance knowledge and understanding of both Protohistoric and Medieval phases, intersecting with wider debates about e.g. sedentarisation, urbanisation and state formation, migration, technologies, trade and connectivity in North Africa and well beyond. The work will draw out the Saharan particularities of these key societal developments.Using interdisciplinary methods, we shall investigate palaeoeconomy, technological capability, social organisation and religion and cultic practices of these desert populations. Four excavation seasons will target a series of different archaeological sites to illustrate the varied aspects of these societies, their economies and belief systems. The exploration of oasis civilisation existing alongside pastoral groups in the Sahara will mark both a fundamental scientific advance and a finding of considerable significance beyond academia.