Anthropology nurtures commitment to African archeology

Anthropology nurtures commitment to African archeology

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News Staff

The Anthropology Department is now bicoastal in Africa.

The department has long had an interest in Africa. In 1977, Susan McIntosh, professor of anthropology, and Rod McIntosh (who left Rice last year) discovered an archeological site in what is today Mali, called Jenne-jeno, that continues to reshape the way scholars think of urbanism in sub-Saharan Africa. McIntosh continues her work in the region with annual visits to the Rice Archeological Field School in Gorée Island, Senegal.

COURTESY PHOTO

Jeffrey Fleisher, standing in one of the excavated mosques from at the site at Pemba Island, Tanzania.

Now McIntosh has been joined by Jeffrey Fleisher, assistant professor of anthropology, whose research along the east coast of Africa complements McIntosh’s focus on west Africa.

“Rice has established a significant reputation in African archeology,” McIntosh said. “A decision was made to build on our strength in the field, with a special focus on complex societies.”

The complex societies McIntosh and Fleisher study differ significantly. For one thing, the earliest finds at Jenne-jeno date back farther than the city-states along the Kenyan and Tanzanian coast; Jenne-jeno is the earliest documented example of urbanism in sub-Saharan Africa.

The two societies were also organized differently. Still, both were indigenous African urban societies that thrived for centuries and offer a wealth of information for scholars and researchers on how society was organized and how it interacted with other societies through trade and other activities.

One problem for archaeologists and the reconstruction of the African past is the ongoing destruction of archaeological heritage due to development projects, such as dams, and the looting of sites for art objects. In Mali, where terracotta statuettes were fashioned in antiquity, this is a particular problem. Site destruction affects not just archaeologists, but also local communities who suffer a loss of economic opportunity. Archaeological sites are cultural resources that can serve as a focus for tourism development.

Committed to cultural heritage

“Susan and I are both committed to the archeology of Africa,” said Fleisher, “but we’re also worried about the cultural heritage.” While laws exist in many countries regarding the protection of archaeological sites, resources to implement and enforce these laws are often lacking in the developing world. “We want development,” Fleisher said, “but we want it kept in mind how to take care of cultural resources.”

One of the keys to ensuring more effective management of cultural resources is to educate future African leaders in the field. This year, two graduate students, Tsholofelo Ditchaba from Botswana and Mamadou Cissé from Mali, have begun their studies in anthropology at Rice.

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Susan McIntosh at work with graduate student Brian Clark at archeological site in Gorée Island, Senegal.

“We reinstituted our graduate program to train Africans,” McIntosh explained. The students can take undergraduate as well as graduate courses at Rice and then engage in archeological research in their home countries. An earlier Rice alumnus rose to become Mali’s director of national heritage.

McIntosh and Fleisher are also active in developing relationships with Houston’s African community and, in turn, nurturing connections with the local African-American community. “We are trying to promote a different kind of dialogue with Africans and African-Americans here in Houston,” McIntosh said. This effort will support President David Leebron’s call to “fully engage with the city of Houston — learning from it and contributing to it” in his Vision for the Second Century.

Meanwhile, the Rice Archeological Field School continues to take small groups of U.S. students to Senegal every summer for excavation work. According to McIntosh, plans call for alternating between Gorée and Tanzania’s Pemba Island. The program, which offers up to six credit hours, is open to both graduate students and undergraduates with prior course work in either African history or archaeology.

Fleisher said the Anthropology Department’s commitment to African archeology does not just amount to research for research’s sake. “We want the results of our research to have a local impact by training African students to become good custodians of their cultural resources,” he said, and “by documenting a past that is important to the present.”