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She is the co-author or editor of five books - three of which are
major monographs on her archaeological research in West Africa..A
fourth book, on the use of African data for understanding the emergence
and development of complex societies, was published in June 1999
by Cambridge University Press. Her most recent co-edited book, The
Way the Wind Blows (Columbia University Press, 2000) deals with
climate change and human response in prehistory.
In addition, she has authored or co-authored over 50 articles on
West African archaeological fieldwork or issues relating to complex
societies in Africa. She has also authored a series of overviews
of West African archaeology and is currently writing a book for
Cambridge University Press on the Holocene archaeology of West Africa.
Her main fieldwork has concentrated on the development of iron-using
societies in the two great floodplains of the Middle Niger and the
Middle Senegal Valleys. She has co-directed field research in Mali
and Senegal for nine seasons since 1980, funded by grants from the
National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and
private foundations.
Because of the growing problem of looting of terracotta statuettes
from Middle Niger sites, she has become involved in issues of archaeological
heritage and cultural property over the past decade, and has published
and lectured widely on these topics. From 1996-2003 she was a member
of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Cultural Property. She
has served or is currently serving on the editorial boards of numerous
journals. From 2002-2004, she was President of the Society of Africanist
Archaeologists.
Her current research focuses on the emergence of large-scale,
complex societies in Africa, the impact of climate and environmental
change on human society in the past, and the politics of archaeology
and archaeological representations of the past.
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