Tel: 778.782.5790 • Fax: 778.782.5666 • Email: adandrea@sfu.ca
Current Research
Research interests include palaeoethnobotany, subsistence reconstruction, ethnoarchaeology, and early agrarian societies of northern Africa and the Far East. In Ethiopia, ethnoarchaeological investigations at the Tigrayan village of Adi Ainawalid are examining aspects of traditional farming practice and the nature of households in order to aid in the interpretation of ancient societies in the Ethiopian Highlands. Detailed studies are underway on the non-mechanised processing of several crops including tef, finger millet, wheat, barley and emmer wheat, an ancient cereal that is rarely cultivated today. A new project on sorghum processing will begin in 2005 in the Middle Nile VAlley region of the Sudan. Archaeological investigations in the Gulo-Makeda region are examining the role of rural peoples in the Aksumite Kingdom. Palaeoethnobotanical investigations are also in progress in collaboration with excavation programmes, including the early Aksumite period site of Bieta Giyorgis (Aksum, Ethiopia), various occupations sequences at Tel er-Rub'a (Egypt), Kintampo occupations at the Birimi locality (northern Ghana) and several Jomon period sites, such as Kazahari (Japan).
Figure 1. Ploughing, Tomb of Sennedjem, Thebes, Egypt, ca. 1250 BC. [Enlarge]
Figure 2. Ploughing near Aksum, Ethiopia, 1997. [Enlarge]