Monks and Makurians: Tracing Biology and Mobility at Medieval Ghazali (ca. 680 to 1275 CE)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Located in the Wadi Abu Dom, approximately 15 kilometers from the Nile in modern Sudan, the medieval Makurian site of Ghazali (ca. 680–1270 CE) was the location of a large monastic community with associated lay settlement nearby. As part of ongoing research at Ghazali, individuals from the four cemeteries identified at this site were sampled for 87Sr/86Sr and ancient DNA for the combined purposes of investigating ancestry and engaging with questions of mobility and migration. The results of this study provide insights to the nature of mobility to the Ghazali area and the ancestral groups of inhabitants of this site, both monks and lay inhabitants. We present the results of this study, addressing and problematizing questions of mobility to the Ghazali area and the implications of biological background in the larger tapestry of ongoing paleogenomic research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36201.0