ETHNOARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES

  

IN SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

 

2008

    Drs. John Arthur and Kathryn Weedman Arthur of USF St. Petersburg are conducting ethnoarchaeological research in southern Ethiopia between May and August 2008.  We have funding that will enable us to bring 2 students to Ethiopia to participate in the project.  We are now opening an application process for students who wish to participate. The application is due at 5pm November 15 in the box outside office Davis 270.  In addition, we may select to interview you  before the end of the semester, we will contact you via email. The project will pay for 2 students’ airfare to Ethiopia and all travel, lodging, and subsistence expenses while in Ethiopia. We also will pay for your passport visa and emergency MEDEX evacuation insurance (see Health Insurance section on application).  There is NO stipend or salary associated with this project for students. Students must pay for their own passports and vaccinations.  Students applying must be anthropology majors with junior or senior status attending USF St. Petersburg and available to participate for the entire period of  May 1, 2007 to July  31, 2007. Priority will be given to students who have completed a majority of their anthropology coursework.  Our goal is to provide fieldwork experience for those students who will pursue graduate studies in anthropology. Students will participate in all aspects of the project, including: assisting in mapping/surveying sites with a total station, excavation of archaeological sites, mapping living households and inventorying material contents, ethnographic interviews and participant observation, as well as archaeological laboratory analysis.

 

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

With National Endowment for the Humanities support, Drs. John W. Arthur and Kathryn Weedman Arthur and their colleagues (Dr. Matthew Curtis, archaeologists University of Florida; Dr. Josephine Lesur, faunal specialist, CNRS France) will conduct ethnoarchaeological research among the Gamo people of southern Ethiopia.

 

The Gamo people, some 600,000 people strong, live in southwestern Ethiopia with Arba Minch serving as the regional administrative center. They occupy a 1200 km2 mountainous region on the western edge of the Rift Valley  overlooking  lakes Abaya and Chamo. The Gamo speak an Omotic language, which is a branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. They are subsistence agriculturists, who primarily rely on enset (an indigenous plant), maize, and barley. The Gamo people are highly stratified and segregate farmers and artisans into distinct caste groups, but we know virtually nothing about their history and the development or origin of the caste system in southern Ethiopia. 

 

 

Drs. Arthur and Weedman previously spent two years  (1996-1998) studying the Gamo artisans (particularly potters and hideworkers who use stone tools to process the hides) and now seek to unravel their history. Subsequently , we have spent the last two field seasons (2006 & 2007) conducting ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological research with the living Gamo peoples focusing on the material and spatial correlates that identify the presence of the caste systems and gender. We also located through oral histories Gamo-Borada historical settlements.  We began mapping and testing these historical sites.

 

The ethnoarchaeological portion of this project is to document the correlations between Gamo caste groups and their material culture variation (ceramics, plastics, basketry, iron tools, stone tools, wood implements, etc.) and material spatial distribution (household, compound, and village).  We (led by Dr. Weedman) will inventory and map the material and structural world of three Gamo villages, which will serve as an analytical baseline for comparing and contrasting against future archaeological and oral historical studies to help identify caste groups and their development in the archaeological record. In addition, we are studying gender, religion, and everyday practices of the past through oral history.  In this study, we will attempt to procure a vision of the material world as understood by the Gamo people and to filter their worldview into the interpretation of their past.

Between 2005 and 2006, through oral histories  (Dr. Arthur) and shovel testing we identified the presence of 10 historical sites in the Gamo Borada region.  During 2007, we (led Dr. Curtis) will map these early settlements using a total station.  In addition, we will conduct small excavations at several of the sites (led by Dr. Arthur).  Our hope for this field season is to better under the settlement pattern and village arrangements through mapping.  In addition, the excavations will provide us with initial dates for the sites and material cultural comparisons.  

APPLICATION PROCESS

 

We hope to give the Gamo a voice in their own past, as well as contributing to better understandings of broader issues in anthropology and archaeology including the identification of craft specialization, the association between material variability and individual and group identities, and the formation of complex societies most notably caste systems.  This project is an important step in the interpretation of the origins and development of the Gamo caste system and may provide a model that could be applied to other caste societies.