Editorial

We take the unusual step of introducing an editorial into a second issue of Azania this year to catch up on events since March. These include, of course, the highly successful twenty-sixth conference of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA) held at Rice University, Houston, Texas, in early June. Preceded by a day dedicated to student-specific discussions, forty-one sessions of papers, roundtables and posters spread over four days showcased the breadth and diversity of African archaeology in a way not possible in person since 2018. At the same time, live streaming of all sessions, something pioneered in 2021 during the online-only twenty-fifth conference, allowed contributors to extend their reach to those unable to make it to the United States. Digital ‘hubs’ at Nigeria’s University of Ibadan and the British Institute in Eastern Africa in Nairobi further facilitated outreach to colleagues resident in Africa.

Details of the papers and posters given at the SAfA conference can be found at https://safarchaeology.org/safa-2023 Encompassing no fewer than 37 countries, they ranged in time from early human origins to archaeologies of resistance against colonial rule. Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan, as well as South Africa, were particularly well-represented and the conference also included the first ever report on archaeological fieldwork in São Tomé and Príncipe. Along with the emergence of social and political complexity and studies of craft production in ceramics, stone and metal, sessions on the necessity of integrating archaeogenetic data with other sources of evidence and on strategies for reconstructing ancient foodways stood out. So, too, did those emphasising how archaeology can best be taught at university and school levels, the importance of collaborative research shaped by the insights and knowledge of local communities and the continued necessity of ensuring effective heritage protection, not least in Sudan where large-scale conflict erupted just weeks before the SAfA meeting began.

All those who attended SAfA, whether in person or online, owe a great debt to its organisers, Mary Prendergast and Jeff Fleisher, and their colleagues. That debt extends to Susan McIntosh, who has been a stalwart of SAfA meetings and executives over many decades. A session commemorating her 1999 edited volume Beyond Chiefdoms Pathways to Complexity in Africa and formal recognition of her career-long service to African archaeology showed colleagues’ collective appreciation. We look forward to publishing an important paper by Susan and Rod McIntosh on their work in Mali in a future issue of this journal.

Nic David, one of SAfA’s founding members, whose obituary we published in March, was one of several departed colleagues remembered in Houston. As the conference ended, African archaeology lost another of its elders, Ed Wilmsen, whose early years investigating Palaeoindian bison hunters in North America were followed by half a century of fieldwork and research into the deep history of the Kalahari. Initiating the well-known ‘Kalahari Debate’ with Jim Denbow in the 1970s and excavating at multiple sites in Botswana, Ed’s 1989 landmark book Land Filled with Flies rewrote understandings of hunter-gatherer histories in southern Africa and beyond. Combining ethnographic and archaeological approaches once again, his more recent work on ceramics delivered important insights into long-distance connections within the Kalahari and yet further afield (Killick 2019; Wilmsen 2019). Ed’s latest papers featured in our March issue, co-authored with Jim Denbow, to whom we are grateful for the personal view of Ed and his work provided here.

Ed’s commitment to archaeology and anthropology was lifelong, as was his commitment to assisting the careers of younger researchers. We therefore end this editorial by congratulating all those whose work was singled out for the award of prizes at the 2023 SAfA conference, beginning with Elizabeth Hicks, winner of the prize for best student paper (Ceramic use, cuisine and the creation of community along the Swahili Coast in the first millennium AD). Additional prizes for student papers went to Victor Iminjili (Late Pleistocene to late Holocene palaeoecology and human foraging at Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar Island) and Abiola Ibirogba (Human occupation on landscapes of trauma: evidence from the Badagry coast), while Sylvia Wemanya was awarded the prize for best student poster (Mobility and land-use patterns of northern Kenya populations during the Holocene).

Congratulations go as well to the winners of the 2023 SAfA book prizes: Steven Dueppen (Divine Consumption. Sacrifice, Alliance Building and Making Ancestors in West Africa); Barbara Frank (Griot Potters of the Folona: The History of an African Ceramic Tradition), John Kinahan (Namib: The Archaeology of an African Desert) and Peter Mitchell (African Islands: A Comparative Archaeology).

And finally, our best wishes to SAfA’s incoming Executive, led by President-Elect Akin Ogundiran. The official hand-over to the new officers is scheduled for 1 January 2024.