Anne Mayor- senior lecturer in African archaeology
- Senior Lecturer at University of Geneva
Anne Mayor
- senior lecturer in African archaeology
- Senior Lecturer at University of Geneva
Director of the Lab
About
131
Publications
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Introduction
- Laboratory Archaeology of Africa & Anthropology : https://arcan.unige.ch
- International research program
Human Population & Palaeoenvironment in Africa :
http://www.ounjougou.org/en/
Current institution
Additional affiliations
August 2018 - November 2023
October 1989 - December 2011
January 2011 - December 2017
Publications
Publications (131)
Ethnoarchaeological studies have highlighted a wide variety of organic coatings used by contemporary potters’ communities. Previous analyses have demonstrated the absorption of organic molecules from coatings in pottery, but these were mainly based on experimental approaches using only a few products, without considering the complexity of the chaîn...
The systematic chemical analysis of large collections of archaeological glass beads is essential to better understand trade patterns at different times around the world. Glass beads’ trade towards and within sub-Saharan West Africa grew exponentially over time to culminate with the establishment of the Atlantic Trade. Although these artefacts are v...
During the last decade, use-wear analysis on pottery has seen significant advances, both in the refining of reference collections and the application of this methodology to the archaeological material. Despite these contributions, the field has not yet paralleled the widespread dissemination achieved by lithic or bone materials.
This paper aims to...
This communication explore the "Changes in agricultural practices and Food at the Mboumba medieval archaeological site (Middle Senegal Valley)"
This book is the catalogue of the exhibition "FALEME : 12 years of archaeological research in eastern Senegal" presented in UCAD, Dakar in November 2023 and at the Musée historique de Gorée from the 30th of January to the 31 of December 2024. Clear texts, very nice graphics and QR codes driving to short audios highlight the challenges and main resu...
Ceramic traditions are constantly evolving, but the pace of change is variable and not all stages of the chaîne opératoire are affected in the same way, depending on the causes of borrowing, abandonment, or innovation. Few ethnoarchaeological studies in Africa have focused on a detailed understanding of these dynamics, which are important for the i...
Because they hold information about cultural identity, foodways have been the focus of a variety of disciplines in archaeology. However, each approach documents different stages of culinary preparation and is constrained by the preservation specificities of each type of artefact and ecofact. Difficulties in achieving an interdisciplinary approach m...
The identification of beer production in past societies remains a
challenge as very few studies have discussed its material evidence.
Our investigation in Senegal aimed at filling this gap. We
documented 14 beer houses and several beer cooking areas in five
Bedik villages and excavated a beer house and associated cooking
area in a recently abandone...
Identifying the function of an architectural structure in
archaeology often remains difficult. The use of external
interpretative references is therefore useful, whether they
are textual, iconographic, ethnographic or experimental.
In the African context, where ancient written sources are
rare, it is important to be able to rely on the results of
e...
L’analyse des résidus organiques présents dans les poteries, matériel poreux et présent de façon généralisée sur les sites archéologiques à partir du Néolithique, a ouvert la possibilité d’explorer les pratiques alimentaires et culinaires du passé. Cependant, les méthodes actuelles ne permettent pas l’identification au niveau spécifique des produit...
Les sites antérieurs au stade isotopique 4 (donc avant 71 000 BP - Before Present) sont rares en Afrique de l’Ouest : cela concerne l’Early Stone Age, mais également les phases anciennes du Middle Stone Age. Cette période est pourtant importante dans l’évolution biologique et culturelle de l’humanité car elle voit l’apparition de notre espèce, Homo...
Le Paléolithique africain est divisé en trois grandes phases: l’Early Stone Age, le Middle Stone Age et le Later Stone Age. Plus on remonte dans le temps, plus les sites archéologiques bien documentés se font rares, et comprendre de façon détaillée la Préhistoire ancienne est un véritable enjeu. Dans la vallée de la Falémé, plusieurs sites majeurs...
Pour la dernière année, sous la direction du Professeur Éric Huysecom, du programme de recherche « Peuplement humain et Paléoenvironnement en Afrique - Projet Falémé » une mission de terrain était prévue au premier trimestre 2022 afin de remplir les objectifs scientifiques fixés. Il s’agissait 1) de poursuivre la caractérisation des dynamiques d’oc...
Located in the Falémé Valley (Eastern Senegal), the site of Djoutoubaya is a settlement excavated since 2016
by the laboratory “Archéologie et Peuplement de l’Afrique” of the University of Geneva. Its occupation is
divided in four phases which occur between the 9th and the 14th century AD, a period which sees the
transition between the Empires of G...
Global changes affecting the rice fields of Lower Casamance since several decades push the
women cultivators to experience new practices and select new rice varieties. The present paper
aims at illustrating how the environmental representations of women allow them to tackle everchanging
and dynamic knowledge and practices, thus participating in the...
Les changements globaux affectent depuis quelques décennies les rizières estuariennes de Basse-
Casamance : ils imposent aux cultivatrices de nouvelles pratiques agricoles et influencent de
nouveaux choix de semences. Cet article a pour objectif de montrer comment les représentations
environnementales des cultivatrices leur permettent de mettre en...
La mission archéologique menée en 2021 dans le cadre du projet « Peuplement humain et paléoenvironnement en Afrique – Projet Falémé » a eu lieu entre le 7 décembre 2020 et le 10 avril 2021 au Sénégal oriental, dans la vallée de la Falémé, après une phase de préparation administrative et logistique à Bamako au Mali. Elle s’est terminée à Dakar par d...
Alain Gallay est décédé le 21 décembre 2021. Archéo-logue, préhistorien, anthropologue, ethnoarchéologue, professeur, vulgarisateur, la SPF a souhaité lui rendre hommage de manière spécifique en publiant trois textes qui retracent différentes facettes de son oeuvre scienti-fique si riche et originale. Nous remercions M. Besse, E. Huysecom, A. Mayor...
Investigating the organic content of archaeological pottery has largely focused on identifying food commodities, but their use and mode of processing still need to be thoroughly investigated. The present study aims to explore the diversity of organic residue absorption patterns, over a wider range of functions than previously studied by experimenta...
This book review concerns the 4th and last volume of the Trans-Saharan Archaeology series, called "Mobile technologies in the Sahara and beyond" and co-edited by Duckworth, Cuénod and Mattingly in 2020 (Cambridge University Press).
La mission de terrain 2020 dans la Vallée de la Falémé, Sénégal oriental, avait pour objectif de documenter plus précisément les dynamiques d’occupation les plus anciennes, de l’Acheuléen au Middle Stone Age ; de mettre en évidence le passage, encore mal compris, des derniers chasseurs-cueilleurs aux sociétés productrices ; de préciser la variabili...
This article in an interview by Ibrahima Cissé about my current research project in Senegal, called "Foodways in West Africa: an integrated approach on pots, animals and plants" in the magazine Reflets Suisse-Afrique 69 (Septembre-October 2021)
A scientific conference entitled Peopling history of Africa: a multidisciplinary perspective was organised in Geneva on 6ñ7 June 2019 (http://ua.unige.ch/peoplingafrica2019/). A total of 23 speakers from 12 different countries and representing multiple disciplines, namely genetics, archaeology, prehistory, anthropology and ethics were invited to ta...
While narratives of the spread of agriculture are central to interpretation of African history, hard evidence of past crops and cultivation practices are still few. This research aims at filling this gap and better understanding the evolution of agriculture and foodways in West Africa. It reports evidence from systematic flotation samples taken at...
The presence of glass beads in West African archaeological sites provides important evidence of long-distance trade between this part of the continent and the rest of the world. Until recently, most of these items came from historical Sub-Saharan urban centers, well known for their role in the medieval trans-Saharan trade. We present here the chemi...
Le projet « Peuplement humain et paléoenvironnement en Afrique – Projet Falémé », mené depuis 2012 au Sénégal oriental, a permis de construire des cadres de référence chrono- culturels préhistoriques et historiques dans un contexte archéologique très riche qui avait peu retenu l’attention jusque-là. Les missions régulières dans la vallée de la Falé...
Iron production represents a major technological shift in African prehistory, and a growing body of archaeological and archaeometric data over the past few decades testifies to the complex origins and development of this technology across West Africa. The recent discovery and excavation of four iron smelting sites in the Falémé River region in east...
Architecture is an important component of cultural identity, although it has rarely been studied in Sub-Saharan Africa. The gradual disappearance of knowledge regarding construction techniques using local materials makes this study urgent. Our ethno-archaeological study of current vernacular architecture and its evolution during the past 3 centurie...
Pourquoi des scientifiques – spécialistes en anthropologie
biologique et culturelle – proposent-ils,
ici et maintenant, une exposition sur la diversité
humaine de l’Afrique ?
Parce que ce continent est celui où notre espèce
Homo sapiens est apparue et a vécu la plus grande
partie de son existence. Toutes les habitantes et
tous les habitants actuels...
La conférence abordera les principaux résultats des recherches archéologiques menées par l’Université de Genève au Sénégal oriental. Nous parlerons ainsi de l'un des très rares sites acheuléens ouest-africains in situ et en stratigraphie daté entre 250’000 et 200’000 ans, d'un Âge du fer ancien remontant au 4e siècle avant notre ère, ou d’un site s...
The modern antiquities market uses radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) dating to screen for forged objects. Although this fact shows the potential and power of the method, the circumstances where it is applied can be questionable and call for our attention. Here we present an outline of a call to radiocarbon laboratories for due diligence and best practice approac...
The modern antiquities market uses radiocarbon (14 C) dating to screen for forged objects. Although this fact shows the potential and power of the method, the circumstances where it is applied can be questionable and call for our attention. Here we present an outline of a call to radiocarbon laboratories for due diligence and best practice approach...
Aims and Objectives
This article reports on diet variability in the Dogon Country (Mali) through a bio‐archeological study of pre‐Dogon and early Dogon human remains (7th century to 19th century AD) from collective burial caves in the Bandiagara Escarpment.
Materials and Methods
Two hundred and twenty crania from collections curated in Leiden, Par...
The so-called Phoenician or Punic eye beads are a well-known type of glass artefacts circulating all over the Mediterranean Basin and Europe for most of the 1st millennium BCE. Glass beads were mostly produced in secondary workshops from imported raw glass or recycled artefacts but the specific sites of manufacture remain difficult to locate. Never...
For an ethnoarchaeological study of the ceramic traditions in the Falémé Valley (eastern Senegal), we have developed an ethnoarchaeometric approach to describe the variability in the clayey materials used by the potters and to stimulate discussion of the connections between raw materials and finished products. The aim is to test archaeometric model...
Le présent rapport de la campagne 2017 au Sénégal oriental, menée dans le cadre du
programme international « Peuplement humain et paléoenvironnement en Afrique »,
intègre les résultats de deux projets complémentaires : le projet ANR-FNS CheRCHA,
ainsi que le projet FNS Falémé. Le premier vise à reconstituer le cadre chronostratigraphique et les évo...
From a biogeographic perspective Africa is subdivided into distinct horizontal belts. Human populations living along the Sahel/Savannah belt south of the Sahara Desert have often been overshadowed by extensive studies focusing on other African populations such as hunter-gatherers or Bantu in particular. However, the Sahel together with the savannah...
In this article, we propose a synthesis of the chronology of Holocene human occupations in the Dogon Country (Mali),
based on 154 radiocarbon dates acquired during the research program “Human population and paleoenvironment
in Africa”. The probability distributions from the calibration of the dates have been summed to produce a curve in
order to vi...
Asking about the nature of constraints present behind ceramic traditions is part of a pool of recurrent questions in archaeology. Are technological choices due to environment, physical characteristics of raw materials, pottery function, socio-cultural mechanisms or historical contingences? Since 2012, our study conducted in eastern Senegal in vario...
Cette 19ème année de recherches du programme « Peuplement humain et paléo-environnement en Afrique » constitue la première année du projet ANR-FNS CHeRCHA (Chronology of Rapid Climatic changes and Human adaptation in West Africa) et du projet FNS centré sur les dynamiques techniques des deux derniers millénaires dans la vallée de la Falémé. Cette m...
The looting of archaeological and ethnographic objects from emerging countries and areas of conflict has prospered due to the high prices that these objects can achieve on the art market. This commercial value now almost necessarily requires proof of authenticity by the object’s age. To do so, absolute dating has been conducted since the end of the...
In this brief communication, we announce a new study, which aims to investigate the dynamics of what life was like during pre-colonial times for pre-Dogon and early Dogon people from the Bandiagara Escarpment in the Republic of Mali. This research, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, forms part of a large body of research led by the La...
Illicit trade in cultural goods lead to heritage impoverishment and social destabilization of rural communities in Mali, whose cultural richness contrasts with economic poverty. Cultural banks were born in this context, to link actions of conservation and promotion of local heritage and income-generating activities. This chapter demonstrates how, t...
Abstract The creation of an ethnoarchaeological reference database for housing is important to address archaeological questions concerning architectural structures, particularly with respect to their technological, functional, social and cultural meanings. Yet such databases are quite rare in Africa despite the frequent use by the inhabitants of na...
Résumé
Les recherches en Pays dogon sont très marquées par les travaux des ethnologues français de la période coloniale. Malgré des relectures critiques, ces écrits restent les principales sources auxquelles les chercheurs se réfèrent. Peu après l’Indépendance, une équipe néerlandaise a mené des recherches dans la falaise de Bandiagara et a propos...
Interview by Peter Coutros with Anne Mayor about her current and upcoming research in Africa, her reasons to choose Africa as a fieldwork, the state of Archaeology today, as a whole and concerning West Africa, and finally where we should be focusing our efforts now.
La question de l’évaluation de la qualité et des performances dans la recherche et l’enseignement en sciences humaines et sociales fait actuellement l’objet de débats et de réflexions dans de nombreux pays, et la Suisse ne fait pas exception. Néanmoins, les perspectives sont le plus souvent disciplinaires et les Area Studies présentent un certain n...
The African continent has been looted for many centuries, the nature, form and motivation varying with conquest, colonization, independence and globalization. Over the last decades, however, the destruction of archaeological sites and the illicit trade in cultural goods has reached such proportions that they seriously undermine African history and...
Abstract
Mali, and in particular Dogon Country, a zone listed in the UNESCO World Heritage List, is the target of intense illegal trade in cultural goods. Development indicators are very low, while the wealth of the communities is found in their culture, which is clearly threatened. Cultural banks have been created in this context and aim to combin...
The African continent has been looted for many centuries, the nature, form and motivation varying with conquest, colonization, independence and globalization. Over the last decades, however, the destruction of archaeological sites and the illicit trade in cultural goods has reached such proportions that they seriously undermine African history and...
Our current research aims to increase our understanding of the production of ancient ceramics by applying archaeometric analyses to the study of the practices of contemporary potters. It therefore lies at the interface of ethnoarcheology and archaeometry. Ethnoarchaeological surveys have been carried out in the Falémé Valley in Senegal as part of a...
La campagne de terrain de 2014 nous a confirmé l’extraordinaire potentiel de la vallée de la Falémé en termes d’histoire du peuplement et de variations climatiques et environnementales, et nous apporte de nombreuses données nouvelles, voire inattendues. Elle nous a aussi permis de découvrir de nombreux sites archéologiques jusqu’ici encore inconnus...
In the Niger Bend, many studies have shown the existence of settlement mounds which mainly developed between the 1st millennium BC and the 15th century AD. While knowledge about tell-type sites in sub-Saharan Africa has advanced in recent years, many aspects of this topic remain poorly understood. Considering the vast geographic area and time span,...
THE GENERALIZED INCISION OF THE YAME VALLEY (MALI) BETWEEN 2,350 AND 1,700 CAL. YR BP: WHICH PALAEO ENVIRONMENTAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE?
Knowledge on past millennia climate and environmental dynamics are rare in West Africa. Paleoenvironmental studies were mainly conducted from lacustrine records and cover the last African Humid Period, e...
The knowledge of the past millennia climate and environmental dynamics in West Africa is still limited. Palaeoenvironmental studies were mainly conducted from lacustrine records and encompass the last African Humid Period, ending about 5,000 years ago. This paper proposes to reconstruct the palaeoenvironmental dynamics for the period 3,000-1,000 ca...
The knowledge of the past millennia climate and environmental dynamics in West Africa is still limited. Palaeoenvironmental
studies were mainly conducted from lacustrine records and encompass the last African Humid Period, ending about 5,000 years ago.
This paper proposes to reconstruct the palaeoenvironmental dynamics for the period 3,000-1,000 ca...
The emergence and evolution of social complexity remains a major topic in African later prehistory. This paper aims to examine this question in the Dogon Country in Mali by reassessing the chronocultural sequence of Toloy-Tellem-Dogon that was defined 40 years ago. Our discovery of two new sites on the Bandiagara Escarpment with coiled clay tombs (...
Recent archaeological survey conducted in Mali in the Guringin Valley, located in the Se ́no Plain, as well as at the top of the nearby Bandiagara Escarpment, has produced evidence allowing the characterisation of numerous settlement sites and locations at which prehistoric metallurgy was practised. The latter have abundant surface material, mainly...
Le contexte géopolitique d’insécurité, général à l’Afrique de l’Ouest saharienne et sahélienne, et la décision de certains pays européens d’interdire l’accès au Mali - dont la partie septentrionale est fréquentée par l’organisation terroriste AQMI, émanation d’Al Qaeda -, nous ont poussé à développer notre programme de recherche à une latitude légè...
Alain Gallay avait mené en 1964-65 en Pays soninké et en 1976 au Sarnyéré Dogon des enquêtes sur la céramique traditionnelle du Mali.
Entre 1988 et 1993, le Département d'anthropologie et d'écologie de l'Université de Genève, reprenait, à l'instigation de l'auteur et en collaboration avec Eric Huysecom et Anne Mayor, des recherches systématiques be...
This article describes the pottery shaping technique of pounding on a concave form on a mat, a technique used in the Sahelian band of West Africa from Sudan to Mali. The impressed decoration generated by this shaping technique is absent at the protohistoric site of Jenné-Jeno in Mali, on the basis of which a reference typology at the West African s...
The question of links between material cultural and sociocultural meaning remains a challenge in archaeology. In this book, Anne Mayor proposes a tool for archaeological interpretation in the area of ceramic studies, capable of addressing questions of ethnolinguistic identity and the settlement history in the Niger Bend, West Africa. Three approach...
Ethnoarchaeological research concerning several ceramic traditions in Central Mali by the MAESAO1 team at the University of Geneva has enabled the collection of significant data on potters' tools and their functions during different chaînes opératoires of shaping ceramics. This case study aims to demonstrate the variability in these tools and the c...
While anthropologists and historians have clearly underlined the dynamics of human groups, ethnoarchaeologists have emphasized the stability of modes of transmission of technical knowledge within ethno- linguistic groups. Overcoming this apparent opposition by mobilizing and confronting lines of evidence from three distinct disciplines — ethnoar- c...
Ethnoarchaeological research concerning several ceramic traditions in Central Mali by the MAESAO1 team at the University of Geneva has ena- bled the collection of significant data on potters’ tools and their functions during different chaînes opératoires of shaping ceramics. This case study aims to demonstrate the variability in these tools and the...
African Pottery Roulette Past and Present: Techniques, Identification and Distribution considers ethnographic, museological and archaeological approaches to pottery-decorating tools called roulettes, that is to say short lengths of fibre or wood that are rolled over the surface of a vessel for decoration. This book sets out, for the first time, a s...
This section draws upon information from ethnographic examples of roulette fabrication and usage in sub-saharan Africa, to set the initial foundations of a systematic classificatory framework for these tools. The simple and elegant framework adopted here for the categorisation of roulettes is articulated around three key characteristics: the materi...
Une chronologie pour le peuplement et le climat du pays dogon: la séquence culturelle et environnementale du gisement d'Ounjougou (Mali) A chronology for the peopling and the climate of the dogon country: the cultural and environmental sequence of Ounjougou (Mali) Résumé Sur le complexe de sites d'Ounjougou (plateau de Bandiagara, pays dogon, Mali)...
Actuellement, le « knowledge gap » entre le Nord et le Sud, et plus particulièrement avec l’Afrique, continue à s’agrandir : baisse de la qualité de l’enseignement au Sud, conflits entre le gouvernement et les universités, augmentation du nombre d’étudiant-e-s sans amélioration des infrastructures ou de l’encadrement, fuite des cerveaux due à l’abs...
The international program « Peuplement humain et évolution paléoclimatique en Afrique de l'Ouest » has been developing since 1997 a diachronic analysis of the Man-Environment inte-ractions in the sub-Saharan zone of West Africa. The studies were initiated on the Ounjougou sites complex, on the Bandiagara plateau (dogon country, Mali). This complex...
This paper reviews the issue of the peopling of the Dogon Country (Mali) and surrounding regions over the past 3000 years, taking into account the influence of Sahelian paleoclimatic variations as well as archaeological, ethnoarchaeological, and historical data. The integration of all these elements is important in order to understand the condition...
