Pots for exhibition

Here is one of the most appealing pots we have and which you may well see on display next year at the Sainsbury Centre. We call it the dolo (beer) -drinking pot although there is just as much of a chance that it was actually used for eating (thanks Didier!). It came from Birnin Lafiya Trench VI (dug by Nicolas) last year. It might date to the twelfth or thirteenth century, judging by a date obtained from charcoal in the same context.

Then, this is what the bulk of our pottery material looks like: below is the assemblage from Kompa. It’s a little less compelling to the casual viewer, but we have whole crates of this stuff.

pots

The past month has been spent thinking about pottery. Louis, visiting from Montpellier, has spent 3 weeks with the Tin tin pottery which will be the focus of his Masters thesis and a Nyame Akuma piece: some of it is quite beautiful, with incised decorations and a deep, burnished, black colour.  Sam has been examining all our ‘intact pots’ (this is polite archaeo-speak for pots which are smashed into relatively large fragments, and thus stand a chance of fitting back together) – some will be part of the project exhibition next year, some will be tested for food/liquids remains (were they eating sorghum? brewing beer? salting fish?), and others will be star attractions in the project monograph. Nadia has been counting and describing Tin tin pots for her forthcoming Nyame Akuma paper. Ali has been keeping a close eye on things from Brussels. I have been looking through various Africanist publications to see which has the most beautiful pot illustrations, and counting and describing potsherds from Kompa. I have to admit there is definitely something to this refitting business…

Next week I am going to be presenting the Crossroads project generally to the Medieval Archaeology group in Cambridge and to the Séminaire Culture Matérielle at the Musée du Quai Branly, while today and tomorrow Olivier G and Lucie S are in Marseille talking about indigo dyeing and spinning and weaving in Dendi.

radiocarbon dates 2013

A first set of radiocarbon dates came back from the lab a couple of weeks ago. They were on samples which came mainly from our test pits at Tin Tin and Gorouberi. These are really interesting in that they confirm that those sites were for the most part inhabited in the latter part of the first millennium AD and the beginning of the second. Those pavements we dated at Tin Tin, for example, were apparently laid down around 1000 years ago. Gorouberi dates (six of them) range between 1100 and 1900 years bp, approximately – it’s our oldest site so far, dating from the time when Tacitus was writing his Historiae and Teotihuacan was flourishing near what is now Mexico City.

To list as other achievements, most of the field reports are now in from the various team members, the pottery from Tin Tin, Kompa and Birnin Lafiya Trench IX are undergoing preliminary analysis, SCVA curators have been examining our earth monolith from TTK1, our MA students have made a comprehensive list of our small finds (metal points, stone beads etc.), I gave a paper on our work at our Centre for African Art and Archaeology, and we had one of the intact, earth-filled pots from Birnin Lafiya Trench X put under the X-ray. We’ve also been  thinking about sources of stone, lipids analysis, babbaji textiles and ground-penetrating radar.

AARD 2013

We are pleased to announce that the African Archaeology Research Day 2013 will be held at the University of East Anglia on the 1st and 2nd November 2013.

The plan is to have a couple of keynote papers (Eric Huysecom and Graeme Barker) on the Friday, we hope to avoid parallel sessions, and we’ll have 3-4 focus discussion groups on the Saturday morning (please send suggestions; ‘archaeology and museum collections’ and ‘Saharan archaeology and landscape’ are two themes already in the running).

The website,  with the first call for papers, is here, and various social media hangouts also await you.

back 3.5 weeks now

Now that we have been back for 3 and a half weeks and life post-fieldwork is almost getting back to normal, under the snow in Norwich, a few more pictures.

I should add that our work is only just starting: the analysis of all the finds begins now, and you can look forward to further updates soon, beginning with the first batch of radiocarbon dates within a few weeks.

Mission in Dendi 2013

 

Our colleague Olivier G’s take on the 2013 field season.

25th Anniversary Post-doctoral Fellowship

Applications are invited for a 3-year post-doctoral research fellowship, beginning September 2013, funded in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK.

Applicants will hold a doctorate in anthropology, archaeology, art history or a related discipline, and will preferably have expertise in one or more of the following areas: history of collections, museum anthropology, or anthropology of art, though other areas of expertise will be considered. Regional area of expertise is open. It is anticipated that there will be a 70/30% split between research and teaching duties.

Closing date: 12 noon, Monday 18 March 2013

Further particulars and an application are available on  http://www.uea.ac.uk/hr/jobs/ra/ra926.htm

amsterdam 16 february

There was no let-up in discoveries in the last few days of fieldwork.

'ah... c'est pas mal'

these kids wanted me to take a picture of them, and then they took a picture of me

Drawing sections prior to backfilling

Under the TTK mango tree

We returned very happy to Cotonou, where meetings, balancing the books and packing boxes easily filled two days. Particular high points of this season have been the continued interdisciplinarity, the recovery of a fuller range of material culture from Birnin Lafiya, the execution of 5.5 test pits upriver from there, a fruitful collaboration with the Direction du Patrimoine Culturel, a much better knowledge of site distribution thanks to surveys, an improved integration with the village elders and Niger colleagues, and the fact that we now have 3 Masters and 2 doctoral theses planned to come directly or indirectly from the project.

Another major aspect of our work has been planning  the exhibition we’ll be holding next year.

Hornimann exhibition piece secured (almost)

Another exhibition-piece-to-be comes out of the ground


Yet another, over Djimet's left shoulder

Having completed the third and largest field season, we’re beginning to think of ‘what next..?’

 

For now, writing from Amsterdam airport with 390 kgs of pottery. Having been warned by the shipping agent about the unreliability of maritime schedules, we took all the finds for analysis with us. A particular thanks to airport staff in Cotonou who, from the Air France chef d’escale to the guy at X-rays, made the process of checking in 32 bags between the six of us more straightforward than you might expect.

 

 

people (3)

 

 

The portrait series has proved popular with relatives and friends back home, so here is a third installment. (Before you ask, globally yes we do look tired and have lost weight!)

 

 

departures

This week sees the departure of a  number of team members. The archaeometallurgy, survey and geoarchaeology teams have been particularly badly hit! 

 

 

Above are  Ali devastated at the rate of erosion of a mound site along the river, Caroline hunting for furnaces, Didier marking a possible site for excavation in 2014, and Paul sampling our deepest trench at BLaf, which was dug by Ali and Nicolas. However fear not, the bulk of the team will be remaining till the 13th, and we are still occupying two bases – Birnin Lafiya and Karimama.