Society of Africanist Archaeologists (Safa) 2021 Conference Abstracts
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Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA) 2021 Conference Abstracts TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 PLENARY SESSIONS 2 1. AFRICANISING AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY 2 2. AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AS HERITAGE DEVELOPMENT 2 3. ARCHAEOLOGY AS LONG-TERM ANTHROPOLOGY 2 4. ARCHAEOLOGY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND SOCIETAL RESILIENCE 2 PLENARY PANEL PARTICIPANTS 3 RESEARCH SESSIONS 4 1. MADAGASCAR AND THE SOUTHWESTERN INDIAN OCEAN 4 2. EARLY HOLOCENE PALAEOCLIMATE AND HUMAN ADAPTATIONS IN AFRICA: THE CURRENT STATE OF RESEARCH 12 3. EARLY STONE AGE TECHNOLOGY AND REGIONALITY 19 4. ENTANGLED AFRICA: INTERACTIONS, RELATIONS AND NETWORKS WITHIN AFRICA 23 5. THE COMMON AND THE PRECIOUS: SOCIO-ECONOMIC INFERENCES ABOUT SOUTHERN AFRICAN HUNTER-GATHERER COMMUNITIES THROUGH THE STUDY OF THEIR MINERAL RESOURCES 31 6. THE SAHEL: RETHINKING ‘MARGINAL’ ENVIRONMENTS 36 7. TECHNOLOGIES AND TERMINOLOGIES OF SUBSISTENCE 41 8. SUDAN UNDER THE RULE OF SENNAR. MATERIAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVES ON NUBIAN SOCIETY IN THE FUNJ PERIOD 45 9. POPULATIONS AND INTERACTIONS IN LATE HOLOCENE SOUTHERN AFRICA 47 10. PREHISTORY AND PALAEOENVIRONMENTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA 52 11. SOUTHERN TANZANIA AND HUMAN ORIGINS: PAPERS IN HONOUR OF PAM WILLOUGHBY 57 12. LES ETATŚ SEŃ EGAMBIENŚ SOUS L’ERÈ ATLANTIQUE: LES DYNAMIQUES DE L’ECONOMIÉ MONDE DANS LA TRAITE ATLANTIQUE 63 13. CHRONOLOGY AND DATING OF ROCK ART 66 14. ARCHAEOLOGY AND PALAEOECOLOGY AT OPEN-AIR PREHISTORIC SITES 70 15. EXPLORING MOBILITY IN AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY 75 16. COMPLEX SOCIETIES REVISITED 79 17. IGBO-UKWU AT 50 86 18. THE PAGES LANDCOVER6K LAND USE GROUP 90 19. LANDSCAPE PERSPECTIVES 93 20. ON ISOTOPES AND OLD BONES: PAPERS IN HONOUR OF JULIA LEE-THORP 99 21. AFRICAN TIMELINES: WHICH GEOCHRONOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES? 104 ROUNDTABLES 108 Note that affiliations are based on those notified and may have changed since abstract submission. Details are as provided. Only one contact email is provided per paper. 1 PLENARY SESSIONS 1. AFRICANISING AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY Panel discussion chaired by Shadreck Chirikure and featuring Wazi Apoh, Per Ditlef Frederiksen, Albino Jopela, Scott MacEachern and Sada Mire. This plenary panel discussion addresses growing calls for a more explicitly postcolonial archaeology responsive to African systems of knowledge and needs, rather than those inherited solely from the Western academic tradition or inspired by institutional frameworks that were often set up before independence. 2. AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AS HERITAGE DEVELOPMENT Panel discussion co-ordinated by Solange Macamo and Chantal Radimilahy and featuring David Gadsby, Kodzo Gavua, Gilbert Pwiti, Tore Saetersdal and Alinah Segobye. This panel explores some of the key challenges we confront in enhancing its relevance to the needs of contemporary African societies and promoting African voices in its theoretical agendas via a focus on the entanglements of archaeology, heritage and community identities. Topic to be explored include the relationship between infrastructural expansion and development and the protection of Africa’s archaeological heritage; the latter’s role in economic growth and political movements within the continent and in constructing or challenging senses of identity at multiple spatial scales; the potential of — and challenges for — tourism to archaeological sites and museums as a contributor to sustainable development; and initiatives (especially those promoting intra-African co-operation) that facilitate the long-term conservation of cultural resources. 3. ARCHAEOLOGY AS LONG-TERM ANTHROPOLOGY Panel discussion co-ordinated by Ann Stahl and Ibrahima Thiaw and featuring Noémie Arazi, Shadreck Chirikure, Kathryn de Luna, Kevin MacDonald and Morongwa Mosothwane. Key topics in this discussion include archaeology’s role in constructing regional histories across Africa and its successes and failures in engaging with complex local narratives and their concerns, contestations and aspirations; recent developments (theoretical and methodological) in the sphere of community archaeology and its relationship to broader developments in public archaeology and Indigenous archaeology; how archaeologists (should) use oral histories; archaeology’s role in interrogating, questioning or upholding established community identities; and the roles of museums and material objects in helping to build, recover or challenge community histories. 4. ARCHAEOLOGY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND SOCIETAL RESILIENCE Panel discussion co-ordinated by Kristina Douglass and Emuobosa Orijemie and featuring Matt Davies, Chap Kusimba, Innocent Pikirayi, and Patrick Roberts. 2 Key topics in this panel include archaeology’s potential for identifying future changes in climate and in mitigating their impact; the place of contemporary debates about climate change within the longer-term perspectives of climate change provided by archaeological research; the threats that climate change may pose to the future of African heritage resources; whether archaeologists can/should contribute to broader societal debates about climate change; and how far — if at all — the current climate emergency should encourage changes in how archaeology is practised, thought about and taught. Plenary Panel PartiCipants Wazi Apoh wapoh@ug.edu.gh Noémie Arazi noe.arazi@gmail.com Shadreck Chirikure shadreck.chirikure@arch.ox.ac.uk Matt Davies matt.davies@ucl.ac.uk Kathryn de Luna deluna@georgetown.edu Kristina Douglass kgd14@psu.edu Per Ditlef Frederiksen p.d.fredriksen@iakh.uio.no David Gadsby david_gadsby@nps.gov Kodzo Gavua KGavua@ug.edu.gh Albino Jopela JopsJ@dbsa.org Chap Kusimba ckusimba@usf.edu Solange Macamo solangemacamo@gmail.com Kevin MacDonald kevin.macdonald@ucl.ac.uk Scott MacEachern scott.maceachern@dukekunshan.edu.cn Sada Mire contact@sadamire.com Morongwa Mosothwane morongwa.mosothwane@mopipi.ub.bw Emuobosa Orijemie orijemie5@yahoo.com Innocent Pikirayi innocent.pikirayi@up.ac.za Gilbert Pwiti gcpwiti@gmail.com Chantal Radimilahy radimilahych@gmail.com Patrick Roberts roberts@shh.mpg.de Tore Saetersdal Tore.Satersdal@uib.no Alinah Segobye alinah.segobye@gmail.com Ann Stahl stahlann@uvic.ca Ibrahima Thiaw thiawi@yahoo.com 3 RESEARCH SESSIONS 1. MADAGASCAR AND THE SOUTHWESTERN INDIAN OCEAN (Zoe CROSSLAND and Chantal RADIMALAHY) 18th – 19th August 2021, 13.00 – 16.00 BST This session provides an opportunity to gather researchers working on the archaeology of Madagascar to present and discuss research from across the island. Madagascar has recently attracted more attention from scholars as interest has grown in its connections across the Indian Ocean and the Mozambique Channel. Given the island’s enormous size, researchers working in disparate areas rarely have the chance to meet each other to learn about and discuss recent developments. This session therefore deliberately includes researchers working in different regions of the island, both those who have worked there for decades and those who have more recently initiated projects with the aim of sharing results and in the hope of building a framework for future study and collaboration. Leanne PHelps,1 Caroline LeHmann and Steve Goodman leanne.phelps.unil.ch 1 Royal Botanic Garden and University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom and Association Vahatra and Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre, Antananarivo, Madagascar Reconstructing the Holocene savannas of Madagascar: implications for long-term disturbance dynamics and modern human land use Contrasting human and large mammal histories between Africa and Madagascar provide a unique point of comparison for investigating the long-term influence of anthropogenic land use on grassy biome development. Vegetation reconstructions from the past 20,000 years demonstrate non-linear responses of forest and grassy biomes to climate change, raising questions about Holocene anthropogenic disturbance. Here, we outline our collaborative research program, using a cross-disciplinary approach to develop new understanding of grassy biome change. We do this by: (1) compiling existing records on Holocene land use and land cover change; (2) investigating relationships between stable isotopes, human land use and floral composition at forest-savanna boundaries; and (3) using remotely sensed fire data to quantify Malagasy fire regimes and their drivers relative to similar climatic spaces worldwide. We detail our progress and preliminary findings in the context of existing African land use and land cover reconstructions and invite relevant opportunities for collaboration. Sean Hixon,1 Kristina Douglass,2 LuCien Rakotozafy,3 Brooke Crowley4 and Douglas Kennett1 hixon@ucsb.edu 1 Dept of Anthropology, University of California at Santa Barbara, United States 2 Dept of Anthropology, Pennsylvania University, United States 3 Institut des Civilisations et Musée d’Art et d’Archéologiue, Université d’Antananarivo, Madagascar 4 Dept of Geology and Dept of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati, United States The past spread of pastoralism and extinction of Madagascar’s endemic megafauna Early estimates of human arrival on Madagascar (~10,000 years ago) coupled with much later megafaunal extinctions (~2000-500 years ago) suggest that a late shift from foraging/hunting to farming/pastoralism contributed to these extinctions. We evaluate the potential for apparent 4 competition between introduced bovids (i.e. cows and sheep/goats) and endemic megafauna (e.g. pygmy hippopotamuses and giant tortoises) in southwest Madagascar using radiocarbon and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from the bone collagen of these animals. We present data