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Figure 1. Location of Adi Ainawalid, Ethiopia. Map produced by S. Wood, Simon Fraser University.
Ethnoarchaeological Research in the Ethiopian Highlands
This ethnoarchaeological study is based at the village of Adi Ainawalid, near Mekelle (Figures 1 and 2). Collaborators include Mitiku Haile (Mekelle University College, Ethiopia), Diane Lyons (University of Calgary) and Ann Butler (University College London, UK). Household and community socio-economic organisation is under investigation (Figure 3), as well as husbandry and processing of crop plants including tef (Figure 4), finger millet, sorghum, intercropped wheat and barley (Figures 5 and 6) and several legumes such as grass pea. The study of modern traditional societies in this manner may provide a window on the nature of prehistoric Ethiopian agrarian cultures, as well as the role of agriculture in the development of social complexity that gave rise to the Kingdom of Aksum.
Figure 2. View of Adi Ainawalid, facing north.
Photograph taken by A.C. D'Andrea, 1996. [Enlarge]
Figure 3. Adi Ainawalid residential compound.
Photograph taken by D.E. Lyons, 1996. [Enlarge]
Figure 4. Harvested tef, Adi Ainawalid. Photograph taken by A.C. D'Andrea, 1996. [Enlarge]
Figure 5. Threshing intercropped wheat and barley, Adi Ainawalid. Photograph taken by A.C. D'Andrea, 1996. [Enlarge]
Figure 6. Winnowing intercropped wheat and barley, Adi Ainawalid. Photograph taken by A.C. D'Andrea, 1996. [Enlarge]