abstract: The Egyptian New Kingdom city of Akhetaten (modern: Tell el-Amarna, el-Amarna, or simply Amarna) provides a unique opportunity to study ancient biocultural dynamics. It was a disembedded capital removed from the major power bases of Memphis and Thebes that was built, occupied, and abandoned within approximately 20 years (c. 1352–1336 BCE). This dissertation used the recently excavated Amarna South Tombs cemetery to test competing models for the development of disembedded capitals, such as the geographic origin of its migrants and its demographic structure in comparison to contrastive models for the establishment of settlements. The degree to which biological relatedness organized the South Tombs cemetery was also explored. The results suggest that the Nile Valley into the New Kingdom (1539–1186 BCE) was very diverse in dental cervical phenotype and thus highly mobile in respects to gene flow, failing to reject that the Amarna city was populated by individuals and families throughout the Nile Valley. In comparison, the Amarna South Tombs cemetery contained the least amount of dental phenotypic diversity, supporting a founder effect due to migration from larger, more diverse gene pools to the city or the very fact that the city and sample only reflect a 20-year interval with little time to accumulate phenotypic variation. Parts of the South Tombs cemetery also appear to be organized by biological affinity, showing consistent and significant spatial autocorrelation with biological distances generated from dental cervical measurements in male, female, and subadult (10–19 years of age) burials closest to the South Tombs. This arrangement mimics the same orderliness in the residential areas of the Amarna city itself with officials surrounded by families that supported their administration. Throughout the cemetery, adult female grave shaft distances predict their biological distances, signaling a nuclear family dynamic that included many females including mothers, widows, and unwed aunts, nieces, and daughters. A sophisticated paleodemographic model using simulated annealing optimization projected the living population of the South Tombs cemetery, which overall conformed to a transplanted community similar to 19th century mill villages of the United States and United Kingdom. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2018

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / British involvement in Ethiopia after 1896 became necessary to stop French activities in the Nile Basin and to block Ethiopian expansion toward the White Nile. After wringing guarantees concerning the Ethiopian sources of the Nile from the Emperor Manilek, Great Britain worked to prevent any potentially dangerous European power from gaining overwhelming predominance at the Ethiopian Court. Thus, in pursing her own interests in Egypt and the Nile Valley, England stood at the same time as a guarantor of Ethiopia's sovereignty [TRUNCATED] / 2999-01-01

Cette étude du matériel céramique provenant de la région située entre les 2e et 3e cataractes du Nil est anthropologique. Elle consiste dans un premier temps à établir un outil de classification permettant le diagnostic des sites dans lesquels la poterie a été mise au jour. Ce travail préliminaire conduit ensuite à aborder le corpus selon trois axes. Le premier est chronologique et aboutit à la construction de la séquence de l'occupation de Haute Nubie, et ce en trois étapes, céramique, culturelle et périodique. Le deuxième axe est territorial et remplit deux objectifs : d'abord déterminer les frontières des faciès et des cultures de la vallée du Nil moyen ; ensuite appréhender les dynamiques à l'échelle de l'Afrique du nord-est – qu'il s'agisse de diffusions d'objets et d'idées, de migrations de populations ou d'échanges marchands. La dernière partie est consacrée à l'approfondissement de quelques faits sociaux : d'abord l'imbrication du stockage, de la sédentarité et de la hiérarchie, ensuite le dépôt de mobilier dans les tombes, et enfin deux systèmes de croyances, en lien avec le monde animal et l'univers minéral. / This study of the pottery which was discovered in the region situated between the 2nd and the 3rd cataracts of the Nile is an anthropological study. First, it consists in building a classification tool which would help to diagnose the sites where the pottery was unearthed. This preliminary work leads to approach the corpus in three ways. First, the sequence of the occupation of Upper Nubia is built, in three stages: ceramics, cultures and periods. The second area of research is territorial and has two aims: to determine the boundaries of the facies and the cultures of the Middle Nile Valley, and to comprehend the dynamics across the Northeastern Africa – circulation of objects and ideas, migrations of populations, marketable exchanges. The last part is devoted to the study of some social facts: first, the interweaving of storage, sedentarity and hierarchy, then the deposition of artefacts in graves, and finally two systems of beliefs, in connection with the animal and the mineral world.

Mon sujet de thèse vise à étudier tous les aspects de la production textile au Soudan à l’époque méroïtique (300 avant J.-C. – 400 après J.-C.). En tant que production artisanale, les tissus sont les fruits de très nombreuses étapes de fabrication, depuis la culture de la fibre à sa transformation en fils, et jusqu’au tissage. Les textiles sont également un des piliers de la culture matérielle des sociétés antiques. Ils y remplissaient des fonctions très variées, liées à l’habillement ou au mobilier, dans tous les contextes, aussi bien urbains, cultuels, que funéraires. D’autres questions devront être abordées, comme celle du commerce avec le monde romain, ou celle de la place de la production textile soudanaise dans les espaces plus larges de la vallée du Nil ou du monde méditerranéen. Ma thèse aura pour objectif de documenter tous ces thèmes, touchants différents domaines comme l’archéobotanie, les études textiles, les analyses iconographiques, l’archéologie et l’histoire.Mon travail consistera à rassembler et analyser les outils, les tissus et les reliefs montrant des costumes, chaque groupe documentaire éclairant un ou plusieurs aspects de la production textile. Il s’agira aussi d’observer les contextes archéologiques afin de déterminer les différentes modalités de production et d’utilisation des tissus. Une telle étude, se basant sur un riche corpus d’objets souvent inédits, permettra d’illustrer un domaine peu connu de la culture matérielle et économique du Soudan méroïtique. / . This research aims to study every aspects of textile production in ancient Sudan and Nubia during the Meroitic period (300 BC – AD 600). Textiles are the result of a multi-faceted craft which involves a long and complex chaîne opératoire, from growing and harvesting the fibres to spinning, weaving, dyeing and sewing. Fabrics and cloths also played a central role in the material culture of ancient societies. They fulfilled numerous and varied functions related to clothing or furnishing in many everyday-life contexts, such as the house, the town, or the temple, but also during the after-life, taking part in funerary rituals and protecting the deceased. This study moreover considers the economic aspects of textile production, notably trade with the Roman provinces and the integration of the Sudanese production into larger geographical regions along the Nile valley and the Mediterranean basin.My doctoral thesis explores these different themes following a multidisciplinary approach, using methods from the fields of archaeobotany, textile studies, iconographic analysis, archaeology and history. The work is based on the gathering of hundreds of previously unpublished data in 3 databases: textiles from old and new excavations, textile production implements, and images of costumes on various media. In correlation with the study of archaeological contexts and findspots, the analysis of each corpus illustrates, for the first time, the diversity of Meroitic textile production and usage. In doing so, this research participates in a recent effort in Sudanese archaeology to shed light on the little-known material culture and economic history of the Meroitic kingdom.