Collaborative Research: Impact And Accommodation Through Cultural Contact

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

The significance of this research rests on the fact that it documents the long term effect of cultural interaction and provides insight into the mechanisms, both social and biological, which guide this process as well as the resultant outcomes. Archaeology can provide a valuable window to understanding how different cultures interact since it can take a long range perspective and follow such processes often over century long time scales. The presence of biological data in the form of skeletal remains adds an additional dimension to the study. Similar interactions are visible today in multiple regions of the world. With the support of the National Science Foundation, an international team, led by Dr. Stuart Tyson Smith and Dr. Michele Buzon, along with other specialists, students, and local community members will conduct a bioarchaeological research project to investigate the impact of the Egypt's New Kingdom Empire (c. 1500-1050 BC) on the Nubian Kerma Culture at the Third Cataract of the Nile River in Upper Nubia. This project builds on previous excavations at Tombos, which have documented a multi-ethnic colonial community of immigrant Egyptians and local Nubians. Excavation will include burials in the elite pyramid field of the cemetery and the previously unexplored settlement. In addition, a settlement (Hannek) and cemetery (Akkad) associated with the local Nubian Kerma culture will be explored in order to allow for a comparison of Egyptian imperial impacts on the health and identity before and after the conquest and colonization of the area. Moving beyond traditional unidirectional models of colonial encounters, this research considers the actions of both the local and foreign groups. The intellectual merit of the project is the contribution to larger archaeological and anthropological research questions regarding the process of inter-cultural interactions, colonialism, and the cultural entanglements that result. Older acculturation models based upon a notion of dominant core and subordinate periphery have increasingly been replaced with more nuanced interaction based models like the one proposed here. This project will add an important case study from one of the world's earliest primary states that will be of relevance to scholars studying similar dynamics in different places and periods. The use of a multi-disciplinary bioarchaeological approach allows for a holistic examination of these issues through use of various types of data including material culture, social practices, biological relationships, geographic origins, and indications of health and disease. Tombos? unique historical context offers significant potential to shed light on the still largely unknown local impacts of the Egyptian empire, providing important data on the local people who played a role in the adoption, adaptation, and rejection of different cultural traits, as well as the interpenetration of Nubian and Egyptian features in both societies. Further broader impacts of this project include the training of American and Sudanese students and researchers as well as promotion of international research collaboration. The excavation and curation of human skeletal remains from the project will provide secure storage of important archaeological and bioarchaeological data and collections as well as ensure the opportunity for future research on the material. The data produced from the proposed research will be widely disseminated in order to provide access for other researchers. Finally, this project will assist the people of Sudan in documenting the rapidly disappearing evidence of ancient Nubian life and culture resulting from settlement and cultivation. The proposed construction of a dam only ten kilometers downstream from Tombos would also heavily impact the sites and adds additional urgency to this project.