Annette M Hansen | Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) (original) (raw)
My current research interests are agricultural economies, archaeobotany (the study of human-plant relationships in the past), crop selection, ethnographic studies of traditional food practices, and food security of both the present day and in the past. My main region of specialisation is the Levant and North Africa, with a particular focus on Jordan, Israel, Egypt and Sudan. I am the senior archaeobotanist on the Tall Hisban, Bayda, Shuqayra al-Gharbiyya, Ghor as-Safi complex (Khirbet as-Sheikh Isa, Tawahin as-Sukkar, Umm Tawabin), Khirbet Safra and al-Jumaiyil excavations in Jordan and Khirbet Beit Mazmil excavations in Israel. I am also an archaeobotanist on the EoS-funded AGROS project.
My dissertation project aims to reconstruct the development of the agricultural economy in Islamic Jordan between the 6th and early 17th centuries, through the lens of intertwined choices for technologies, crops and other innovations against the background of political, cultural and demographic developments. Six archaeological case studies will be evaluated from southern Bilad as-Sham: Tall Hisban, Baydha, Ghor as-Safi (Umm Tawabin, Khirbet as-Sheikh 'Isa and Tawahin as-Sukkar), Shuqayra al-Gharbiyya, and Khirbet Beit Mazmil.
First a model will be constructed in which the factors that determine a crop and practice-choices are related. This will be done using available data on local climate and geography as well as data on crop requirements and performance parameters, but also with incorporation of known ancient and medieval farming practices and technologies. Then, the model will be tested using two main types of data: 1.) Arabic textual sources, such as farming manuals and administrative documents, some of which will be for the first time be translated by the candidate, and 2.) archaeobotanical data (both published and to be collected) from archaeological sites in Jordan and can then be used to interpret the observed changes in crop and practice-choices. Macro-plant remains (including seeds/fruits, rhizomes, wood, rachis, chaff, leaves) and secondary products including impressions of macro-plant remains will be the main focus of the archaeobotanical study.
The interdisciplinary combination of textual and archaeobotanical evidence make the proposed research the first genuinely interdisciplinary approach to Jordanian Islamic agriculture, with not only the potential to resolve a current debate on the nature of economic development in the Islamic Empires at large, but will also shed a new light on the agricultural component of the Roman-Byzantine/Islamic transition and allow for cross-period comparisons. To this effort it would contribute a large, homogenous and well-evidenced case study stretching over one thousand years.
Supervisors: Professor Dr. Peter Attema, University of Groningen, Professor Dr. Bethany Walker, University of Bonn, Dr. Wim Jongman, Dr. Lucy Kubiak-Martens, BIAX Consult, Collaborator: Professor Emeritis Dr. Pieter Baas, Leiden University, and Wood Identification
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