Interests
I am currently working on two major writing projects: an overview of West African archaeology for the Cambridge University Press World Archaeology series, and the final draft of the monograph of our excavations in the Middle Senegal Valley, with RJ McIntosh. My long-term research agenda continues to focus on the origins of complex societies, West African Iron Age archaeology, ceramic analysis, human osteology, and cultural property and heritage preservation issues. For 2006-7, I hold the Nancy Wilkie Lectureship in Archaeological Heritage at the Archaeological Institute of America and will travel to several chapters to lecture on "Africa's Vanishing Past".
Publications
Fouilles à Sincu Bara, un site de l’Age de Fer dans la Moyenne Vallée du Sénégal (with H. Bocoum) Dakar: IFAN/Ch. A. Diop/ Nouakchott: CRIAA (2002); The Way the Wind Blows: Climate, History and Human Action (Edited with J. Tainter and R.J. McIntosh). New York: Columbia University Press (2000); Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa (edited volume). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1999); "Archaeology and early West Africa", in E. Akyeampong (ed.) Themes in West Africa's History. Oxford: James Currey Publishers, pp. 11–31 (2005); "Early urban configurations on the Middle Niger: Clustered cities and landscapes of power" In M. Smith (ed) The Social Construction of Ancient Cities. Smithsonian (with R.J. McIntosh), pp. 103–120 (2002); "Reducing incentives for illicit trade in antiquities: U.S. implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention." In Illicit Antiquities, edited by K. Tubb and N.J. Brodie. Routledge: 241–248 (2002).
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