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Introduction
I am a tropical archaeobotanist and archaeologist. One of the major goals of my research is to reconstruct the evolution of agricultural, food and beer systems, including both production and consumption. This aim goes beyond simply documenting the arrival of new practices or new crop taxa. It also addresses the consumption practices that these crops gave rise to, and how they became embedded in the social, economic, political and environmental history of past tropical societies.
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May 2020 - September 2022
May 2019 - April 2020
September 2013 - April 2019
Publications
Publications (66)
Crop evolutionary history and domestication processes are key issues for better conservation and effective use of crop genetic diversity. Black and white fonio (Digitaria iburua and D. exilis, respectively) are two small indigenous grain cereals grown in West Africa. The relationship between these two cultivated crops and wild Digitaria species is...
Archaeobotanical evidence suggests that the beginning of cultivation and emergence of domesticated sorghum was located in eastern Sudan during the fourth millennium BCE. Here, we used a genomic approach, together with archaeobotanical and ethnolinguistic data, to refine the spatial and temporal origin and the spread of cultivated sorghum in Africa....
Cooking ceramics represent a key example of post-harvest intensification, making foodstuffs more edible and their nutrients more bioaccessible. These can be considered an example of materialesque intensification, in that the labor is invested ahead of time in a material product that continues to provide for intensive processing. In the Old World th...
This communication explore the "Changes in agricultural practices and Food at the Mboumba medieval archaeological site (Middle Senegal Valley)"
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...
Myanmar is located within an important geographic corridor of prehistoric demographic and technological exchange, yet relatively few archaeological sites have been securely dated. Here, the authors present a new radiocarbon chronology for Halin, a UNESCO-listed complex in the north-central Sagaing Division of Myanmar, which contributes to the gener...
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...
Pearl millet, Pennisetum glaucum, was likely domesticated in the southwestern fringes of the Sahel zone of West Africa in northeast Mali beginning before 2500 bce , and from this region rapidly spread, within less than 1000 years of domestication, eastwards across the Sahelian/north Savanna zone to India, with archaeobotanical remains providing evi...
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...
The Nok culture in central Nigeria, dated 1500–1 cal bc, is known for its famous terracotta sculptures. We here present a study on > 11,000 botanical macro-remains from 50 sites, including 343 samples from Nok contexts and 22 samples dating between cal ad 100 and 400, after the end of the Nok culture. With 9,220 remains, pearl millet (Cenchrus amer...
![IU-1.1. Top left: Context [17] at level 30–50 cm. Bottom left: Context...](publication/365013688/figure/fig5/AS:11431281105383720@1670381844128/IU-11-Top-left-Context-17-at-level-30-50cm-Bottom-left-Context-18-at-level_Q320.jpg)
We present the results of fieldwork conducted at Igbo-Ukwu in 2019 and 2021 aimed at expanding the temporal and spatial record of the ancient settlement. Local participation and public engagement are central to the project, which has yielded a new dataset that enhances our understanding of the archaeological and landscape contexts of Thurstan Shaw’...
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...
While narratives of the spread of agriculture are central to interpretation of African history, hard evidence of past crops and cultivation practices are few and far between. The present research looks at flotation samples derived from Mboumba in Senegal being investigated in 2020-21-22 as part of Aïssata Thiam PhD's project. The site is located ne...
The long period spanning the Neolithic to the Metal Age is still poorly understood in the Thai-Malay peninsula (TMP), and current interpretations rely on limited data from a large region and a few dates obtained mainly from inland cave sites. There has yet to be any published research on estuarine and coastal contexts for this period. In 2017 The F...
West African cuisine has long been known for its distinct ingredients and flavours, often enhanced by the addition of a large and diverse range of plant foods. A traditional meal comprises a starchy staple cooked in a pot and served with a sauce prepared from vegetables, fish and/or meat, often accompanied by pulses. However, reconstructing the ant...
En septembre 2015 et janvier 2016, suite à une initiative
du gouvernement de la République démocratique
du Congo concernant la « Route de l’esclave » (http://
www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/
themes/slave-route/), des enquêtes historiques et des
prospections archéologiques ont été menées à l’embouchure
du fleuve Congo entre Boma et...
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...
Kola nut (Cola cf. nitida) and Safou fruit (Dacryodes edulis) remains have been discovered in eleventh- to fourteenth-century archaeological contexts at Togu Missiri near Ségou in Mali. These remains are evidence of early trade in perishable foodstuffs from the West African forest zone into the Middle Niger region. On the basis of these finds, this...
Recent archaeobotanical analysis revealed that the botanical remains from the site of Tongo Maaré Diabal (Mali) are composed primarily of pearl millet remains (up to 85%). Contemporaneous West African sites (500–1200 Cal AD) usually display more diverse patterns, especially by the end of this period. Indeed, contemporary urban sites of the West Afr...
Imprints of domesticated pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.) spikelets, observed as temper in ceramics dating to the third millennium BC, provide the earliest evidence for the cultivation and domestication process of this crop in northern Mali. Additional sherds from the same region dating to the fifth and fourth millennium BC were examin...
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...
MicroCT visualisations of organic inclusions within pottery sherds from Khashm el Girba 23 (KG23), Sudan, reveal domesticated sorghum (Sorghum bicolor subsp. bicolor) at c. 3700-2900 BCE. The percentage of non-shattering spikelet bases was c. 73% of identifiable visualizations, with c. 27% representing wild types. These analyses demonstrate the dom...
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...
The nitrogen isotope compositions of charred wheat and barley grains reflect manuring intensity and have been used to reconstruct past manuring practices at archaeological sites across Europe and western Asia. To assess whether this analytical method can be applied to a staple crop in the West African Sahel, the nitrogen isotope values of Pennisetu...
Dans le cadre du projet Peuplement humain et paléoenvironnement en Afrique, coordonné
par l’un des auteurs (É.H.) et financé par le Fonds National Suisse de la recherche
scientifique (FNS), la Fondation Suisse-Liechtenstein pour les Recherches Archéologiques
à l’Étranger (SLSA), l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche française (ANR) et la
Faculté des S...
Archaeological research in Bangladesh is a relatively new discipline with archaeological excavations beginning in the late 20th century. The first Archaeology Department in Bangladesh was established at Jahangirnagar University in 1992. As in other tropical areas, palaeo-environmental research has been slow to be adopted and investigated in Banglad...
Many societal and environmental changes occurred between the 2nd millennium BC and the middle of the 2nd millennium AD in western Africa. Key amongst these were changes in land use due to the spread and development of agricultural strategies, which may have had widespread consequences for the climate, hydrology, biodiversity, and ecosystem services...
This paper concerns the ceramic assemblages of two late second to early first millennia bc cemeteries, Oakaie 1 and Nyaung’gan, located in the Sagaing region of Upper Myanmar. In total, sixty-one graves have been excavated. Various grave goods were recovered in addition to the pottery, numerous classes of which exhibited stylistic similarities from...
Many societal and environmental changes occurred from the 2nd millennium BC
to the middle of the 2nd millennium AD in western Africa. Key amongst these
were changes in land use due to the spread and development of agricultural strategies,
which may have had widespread consequences for the climate, hydrology,
biodiversity, and ecosystem services of...
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...
The Niger River is second only to the Nile
in length in Africa, and is host to dense populations of agriculturalists that supported in historical times states such as the kingdoms of Songhay and Mali. This is also the region to which the origin of the Niger-Congo language family, including its Bantu offshoot is attributed. Despite this, archaeobota...
Late prehistoric archaeological research in Myanmar is in a phase of rapid expansion. Recent work by the Mission Archéologique Française au Myanmar aims to establish a reliable Neolithic to Iron Age culture-historical sequence, which can then be compared to surrounding regions of Southeast Asia. Excavations at Nyaung’gan and Oakaie in central Myanm...
Windé Koroji Ouest is an early agro-pastoral site situated at the eastern periphery of the Inland Niger Delta of Mali, north of the Gandamia and Bandiagara escarpments. This chapter is the first publication of all subsistence and environmental information available concerning this site which was excavated by the senior author in 1992/1993. The pres...
Since the 1970s, the quest for finding the origins of domesticated sorghum in Africa has remained elusive despite the fact that sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench. sensu stricto) is one of the world’s most important cereals. Recognized as originating from wild populations in Africa (Sorghum arundinaceum (Desv.) Stapf), however, the date and cultu...
During the months of May and June 2016 archaeological investigations were carried out in the Maniema Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which until then constituted unexplored territory. Until now the area's history was only known as far as the 19th century, with the establishment of the slave and ivory trades by Swahili-Arabs from t...
In the context of the “Crossroads of Empires” project led by Anne Haour, one strand of enquiry aims to understand the history of blacksmith groups and the development of iron production in Dendi country, in the northern Republic of Benin. Numerous remains of iron production have been discovered, showing a great variability in furnace design and was...
As part of our PhD projects, we conducted two months of archaeological fieldwork in the south of the Republic of Congo. The research focused on two areas known for their past metallurgical activities: Mindouli in the Pool province and Boko-Songho in the Bouenza province. In addition to pedestrian surveys, 9 sites have been test excavated, providing...
English Abstract As part of our PhD projects, we conducted two months of archaeological fieldwork in the south of the Republic of Congo. The research focused on two areas known for their past metallurgical
