威廉玛丽人类学学院应届毕业生奥兰雷瓦朱·拉西斯博士获得弗吉尼亚大学博士后奖学金和俄亥俄州立大学助理教授职位
奥兰雷瓦朱·拉西斯博士今年完成了他在威廉与玛丽大学人类学系的博士研究，最近取得了一系列著名的学术成就。他不仅成功地获得了博士学位，题为《权力的景观》《Ìjẹ´bú-Yorùbá宫殿城市景观的历史考古学和文化天文学，公元1000年至1900年》（获得William & 玛丽杰出论文奖），Olanrewaju已成功获得弗吉尼亚大学建筑学院梅隆博士后奖学金，温纳-格伦博士后研究基金，并于2024年被任命为俄亥俄州立大学人类学助理教授（终身教职）。Olanrewaju和他的朋友、同事、life - sungbo考古项目的合作者Tomos Evans坐在一起，讲述了他鼓舞人心的故事，并讨论了在这些新机遇下他未来的研究轨迹。Olanrewaju首先讨论了他早期在尼日利亚西南部上学时对考古学和历史的兴趣：“当我还是个小男孩的时候，我们上社会研究课。在上进化论课时，我问老师“你说的智人是什么意思？”她回答说：“我不知道，我不是考古学家！”这让我想到了一个问题——什么是考古学家？”Olanrewaju早期的好奇心驱使他更多地了解这门学科，他开始欣赏通过物质遗迹研究过去的概念，尤其是在他的家乡Ìjẹ bú-Òde与早期物质文化面对面时，最初是偶然的：“我喜欢考古学家的整个概念。许多年后，当我还是个青少年的时候，我在一个建筑工地工作，在那里我把水泥和沙子混合在一起。在第一次刷土时，我看到了陶器碎片。”奥兰雷瓦朱被一个直接的问题打动了：“谁使用并倾倒了这些陶器碎片？”这是一个荒无人烟的地方，周围没有房子。”当奥兰里瓦朱看到过去Ìjẹ bú人的文物时，他产生了强烈的好奇心，就在那时，奥兰里瓦朱决定，他有兴趣成为一名考古学家。奥兰雷瓦朱随后申请伊巴丹大学（University of Ibadan）攻读考古学学位。UI在尼日利亚和非洲考古学史上享有盛名，培养了几代著名的尼日利亚考古学先驱，包括Bassey Andah， Caleb Folorunso, David Aleru， David Aremu和Akin Ogundiran等许多人，他们都为尼日利亚和海外学术考古学的强大基础设施做出了贡献。奥兰雷瓦朱对他在伊巴丹大学的学习有着美好的回忆：“我要说的是，这一切都令人难忘——那里的人，大学本身的环境——但我在伊巴丹大学最难忘的经历和时间是我在那里参加的所有实地考察。在伊巴丹，你必须在第二年、第三年和第四年去实地学校。”
奥兰里瓦朱很欣赏这些实地学校（分别在2012年、2013年和2014年）在他和他的本科生同学之间培养的友谊、社区和同志情谊：“你们都坐同一辆车，住在同一个屋檐下，每天早上7点去工地。”从学术的角度来看，这些遍布尼日利亚西南部的田野学校给了Olanrewaju观察考古背景的机会，这些考古背景通常与他在Ìjẹ - bú所观察到的非常不同，从而使他对Yorùbá-speaking地区及其以外的考古有了一个广泛的比较视角。野外学校也提供了宝贵的实践经验，使奥兰里瓦朱成为一名严谨、有条不紊的野外考古学家。Olanrewaju特别感谢伊巴丹大学教授在该领域的指导：“我当时与伊巴丹大学教授的互动非常有帮助，直到现在也是如此，但我与他们在该领域的互动是超现实的：这让我意识到“这正是我来伊巴丹的原因！”这个领域本身就是我可以真正了解它是如何完成的地方。”除了这些实地学校，2014年，Olanrewaju与他的本科导师David Aremu合作，在他的家乡Ìjẹ bú进行了自己的实地考察。正是在这里，他与松博的埃雷多（Eredo）考古遗址有了面对面的接触。埃雷多是一个巨大的堤岸和沟渠土方工程，周长100英里，围绕着Ìjẹ bú王国的一部分，据推测，该王国是非洲最大的单一人类建筑。“他（Aremu教授）把我带到现场，让我下车，他说‘去那里挖掘吧’，然后他离开了，打电话给我说‘我现在在伊巴丹，告诉我发生了什么事！’”他给了我一种独立的感觉，也让我有能力进行独立研究，监督工作，与当地人合作。”Aremu教授还邀请Olanrewaju共同发表他们在Sungbo的Eredo的Oke-Eri遗址的联合工作，这对他作为考古学家的新兴事业是一个重要的推动。就在那时，Olanrewaju开始考虑出国留学，以进行他打算进行的关于Ìjẹ æ bú考古的研究生研究，也就是在这一年，他遇到了第一次来尼日利亚做研究的gsamrard Chouin教授（William & 玛丽 's历史系教授）（2015年）。Chouin教授与Adisa Ogunfolakan教授（Obafemi Awolowo大学，Ilé-Ifè）合作，最近成立了life -Sungbo考古项目，这是一项国际合作努力，旨在研究和记录更多关于Yorùbá神圣城市Ilé-Ifè和Sungbo的Eredo的考古资料。“我开始考虑与来自国外的学者合作研究尼日利亚的考古学，所以在2014年，当我在松博的埃雷多工作时，我联系了gsamrard，因为我知道他对加纳土方工程的研究。我联系了他，告诉他我的发现，我们谈了很多——我们总是来回交谈。”正是通过这些对话，Olanrewaju了解到Chouin教授即将在尼日利亚进行的实地考察，他最终在2015年、2016年和2017年加入了这项工作。Chouin教授鼓励奥兰莱瓦朱申请到美国的威廉玛丽和其他地方进行博士研究。“我选择William & 玛丽是因为我和gsamrard之间的关系，而且我们在尼日利亚的时候就决定合作。我不后悔这个决定！”在这个时候，Olanrewaju还遇到了他在人类学系的导师Neil Norman教授，他的善良和对西非土方工程的研究也激励了他。有了这样的专业知识，可以相当公平地说，威廉玛丽大学是研究西非考古（如Yorùbá， Fon和Akan民族）的最好的大学之一，特别是当它涉及到无数的土方工程时——这是该地区历史建筑中最永久和持久的例子。
Having discussed Olanrewaju’s early background and journey as an archaeologist, Tomos then quizzed Olanrewaju on some of the recently defended research that he undertook throughout his Ph.D. Olanrewaju began by first giving an overview of the Ìjẹ̀bú Kingdom, now part of southwestern Nigeria, and its historical importance. The polity is known to have been around since at least the 15th century AD, when it was first documented by Portuguese traveler Duarte Pacheco Pereira:
“The kingdom played a very important role as a nexus between the Atlantic Ocean and the Yorùbá interior during the second half of the second millennium AD. During the Atlantic trade, they were the middlemen of the Yorùbá Atlantic.”
He highlighted that there is a dearth of archaeological evidence for the kingdom, due to a relative lack of research in the region:
“The problem is not that there are no material remains to help us understand the Ìjẹ̀bú past. We have not looked much at the archaeology of the place, but also, we have not used the right methods to do the archaeology. That is why in my work I focus a lot on indigenous ontology and hermeneutics – not only as a way of doing, but also as a way of knowing the Ìjẹ̀bú and Yorùbá past. This ontological turn is important for us to begin to delve into new areas of research among the Yorùbá.”
The kingdom during this period accomplished many impressive technological feats, in astronomy, agriculture, trade, political organization, and architecture, and Olanrewaju believes strongly that we have only begun to scratch the surface in terms of what there is to learn about the Ìjẹ̀bú past.
For his Ph.D. research, Olanrewaju sought to contribute to fleshing out our understanding of this past via a multidisciplinary approach. He focused on questions pertaining to archaeoastronomy and the urban and ritualized landscape in the Ìjẹ̀bú Kingdom and performed excavations at the traditional capital of the kingdom: Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde, focusing on its interior earthwork and palace complex. As well as Sungbo’s Eredo, there are additional, smaller earthworks surrounding the town of Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde, and Olanrewaju was interested in better understanding the relationship between the town, its palace (a microcosm of the wider Ìjẹ̀bú landscape of power), and that of the broader kingdom, including the Eredo. It was during this fieldwork that Olanrewaju realized the importance of ritual practice in studying and understanding these aspects, especially in a historical context where ritual, oral tradition, and forms of material culture helped carry history in the absence of written records:
“They wrote by encoding their knowledge system in oral poetries, in place names – and all of this is connected to the practice of rituals. So if you need to ask questions about the past here, look into the ritual practices. Some may state “Why should we deal with ritual practices? We are talking 700 years and you are looking at the present!” – I know that, but at the same time, ritual practices are sacrosanct. They maintain a legacy of timeless relevance – it becomes tradition. So much that sometimes the people performing the rituals don’t know why they are doing it, but they do it because it’s a tradition. This allows us as archaeologists to study traditions, and bring out the facts from them.”
Festivals became a means of marking time and generating meaning for these communities. Of particular importance to Olanrewaju’s work is the Agemo festival, which occurs in July. To calculate when the festival will be, a date nine days before it is marked: June 21st, which coincides with the summer solstice when the sun is in the northern part of the Yorùbá sky:
“So before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar, they had their own ritual calendars. And for you to have this ritual calendar, you need to have knowledge of astronomy. So ritual is very important to inform us about astronomy – there can be no ritual without looking at the heavens!”
The solstices and the equinox thus coincide with important ritual events that were considered important to the wellbeing and longevity of the kingdom. Olanrewaju is interested in these rituals as a source of history, especially in how it interacts with landscape:
“Ritual movements are not merely something random upon the landscape, in fact ritual movements are by themselves more permanent than standing architecture. They believe that they must move in a particular way, and this is the architecture of ritual movement.”
The tracing of these – notably the movements of the Agemo festival – has helped shape Olanrewaju’s approach as an archaeologist as he focused on excavating important loci in these ritual movements which yielded significant artefactual discoveries. During this festival, the Agemo priests, who all live in the Agemo towns near Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde, and Sungbo’s Eredo, gather in the town’s palace complex where they move in highly structured ways. They must enter through the correct gates so as to avoid upsetting the cosmic balance, but for Olanrewaju there are also deeper historical reasons for these specific pathways. For instance, particular loci where the Agemo priests would perform rituals before entering the town appear to correspond to the original gateways of the town’s enclosure, which no longer exist. Though the gates themselves are long gone, the liminal rituals of entry – ijuba – must still be performed.
“Through rituals, we are able to see architecture that is unseen. You are able to imagine what was there.” At the place where the Agemo priests dance, Olanrewaju uncovered a potsherd pavement which he argues represents the effigy of the Agemo high deity. Olanrewaju has become a strong advocate for the close integration of archaeology with the study of ritual movement:
“Looking at ritual practices is the right step for doing the archaeology of the Yorùbá, and actually, in Africa more broadly where, as has been argued by Kenyan philosopher John Mbiti, everything is connected to religion.”
在谈话的最后，Tomos与Olanrewaju讨论了他未来的一些计划——当他与温纳-格伦、弗吉尼亚大学和俄亥俄州立大学一起承担这些新机会时，他将把他的研究方向向前推进：“一切似乎都与我作为一个学者的发展方向一致——在思考考古天文学、思考仪式，以及这些与建筑的联系上。”在UVA的建筑学院，Olanrewaju计划继续强调不再存在或可见的建筑通过仪式保持永久性的方式，有时甚至比可见形式更重要：“我想从事将考古天文学和仪式运动建筑联系起来的出版物。这将有助于非洲考古学者使用这些方法来进行考古工作。除了发表我的发现，我的目标是开发和鼓励新的方法来指导其他学者，并帮助他们产生更多的发现——神的运动不会说谎！”在弗吉尼亚大学从事这项工作时，他也很享受与其他学科的学者——建筑师、景观设计师、景观历史学家、考古学家、人类学家、宗教研究学者和地理学家——进行交流的机会。作为一名非洲学者，Olanrewaju旨在提请人们注意这样一个事实，即即使在建筑已经瓦解的地方，仍然有方法对结构进行考古天文学研究（它们的排列，与天空的联系等）：通过研究仪式运动的排列。在俄亥俄州立大学人类学系，Olanrewaju计划进一步推行这些想法，并通过将土著知识集中在他对过去的分析中来超越学科界限：“我的目标是成为一名促进土著解释学和本体论的学者。我想帮助大家解读我们忽略的东西。土著解释学本身就是一个知识体系，我工作的中心主题是促进土著解释学作为一种了解过去的方式。”威廉和玛丽人类学庆祝奥兰纽瓦朱在获得博士学位，获得温纳-格伦基金，并在弗吉尼亚大学和俄亥俄大学获得这些享有声望的职位方面取得的巨大成功。干得好，最令人兴奋的是看看接下来会发生什么！
