Nicholas
David
Ethnoarchaeologist
This page has a number of sections:
1. Academic life
so far
2. Research
including slideshows on the DGB sites of N. Cameroon
and a Sukur website
3. The Ethnoarchaeology
Bibliography
4. Ethnoarchaeology
in Action
5.
The Mandara+ Bibliography
6. Videos
7. Teaching
8. Societies, Administrative,
and Other
9. On Writing an Article
for Publication
1. Academic life
-- so far
I was born in 1937 and educated at the universities of
Cambridge (B.A. Arch. and Anth. 1960) and Harvard (A.M. 1962 and Ph.D. Anthro.
1966). My research interests are in ethnoarchaeology, archaeological theory,
African later prehistory and culture history, and in the European Upper Palaeolithic.
I have directed the Mandara Archaeological Project in Cameroon, Nigeria, and
Ghana, since 1984, and have also worked in the southern Sudan and the Central
African Republic. I served for four years as head of the Department of Archaeology
at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, before moving to Calgary in 1980. From
1980 to 1985 I was founding editor of the African Archaeological Review.
I retired at the end of December 2001 and have since then been heavily involved
in fieldwork in northern Cameroon, once again doing dirt archaeology and investigating
what were formerly thought to be stone-built strongholds but now seem more
likely to be watch
and water towers.
A recent publication is:
Nicholas David and Carol Kramer 2001. Ethnoarchaeology
in action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Earlier publications include: a monograph (revised
doctoral thesis) on the Noaillian, an Upper Palaeolithic culture
of Western Europe that had not previously been recognized (American School
of Prehistoric Research Bulletin 37, 1985); with Hilke Hennig, The ethnography
of pottery: a Fulani case seen in archaeological perspective (Addison-Wesley,
1972); two ‘Archaeology Workbooks,’ the first with Steve Daniels
and the second with Jon Driver (University of Pennsylvania Press 1982 and
1989), and quantities of articles.
Other recent publications include:
1999. "The ethnoarchaeology and
field archaeology of grinding at Sukur, Adamawa State, Nigeria." African
Archaeological Review 15 (1): 13-63,
with Judy Sterner, my wife and colleague, 1999.
"Wonderful society: the Burgess shale creatures, Mandara polities, and
the nature of prehistory" in Susan K. McIntosh (ed.)
Beyond chiefdoms:
pathways to complexity in Africa, pp. 97-109. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press,
2001 (appeared 2003) 'Lost in the Third Hermeneutic?
Theory and methodology, objects and representations in the ethnoarchaeology
of African metallurgy." Mediterranean Archaeology 14:49-72,
and
J. Sterner and N. David. 2003. 'Action on matter:
the history of the uniquely African tamper and concave anvil pot-forming
technique.' Journal of African Archaeology 1 (1):3-38.
More information is given in other sections and in my Curriculum
vitae
2. Research
Since
1984 I have directed the Mandara Archaeological Project which, despite
its name, is primarily ethnoarchaeological in nature though its latest
phase is archaeological and ethnological. At one time the MAP extended
beyond the Mandara mountains of Cameroon and Nigeria to the Upper East
Region of Ghana, a region characterized by societies at a similar level
of complexity and that have, as in the Mandara, been subject for centuries
to the depredations of surrounding states.
During the 1990s we focussed our work on the Nigerian
side of the border and especially at Sukur, a mountain chiefdom once characterized
as a divine kingdom, an interpretation that our experiences led us to revise.
Judy Sterner's 1998 Ph.D. thesis, The Ways of the Mandara Mountains
(SOAS, University of London) is soon to be published by Rüdiger Köppe
Verlag, Köln, as a book of the same title in the Westafrikanische Studien
series. While this is a regional study it contains a great deal of what we
have learned about Sukur. Other publications are listed in my CV.
During our stay at Sukur we contributed to, though we did not initiate, the
preparation of the citation that led to its being declared a World Heritage
site by UNESCO in recognition
of its cultural landscape.
A
SPOT image of the Sukur region.
Additional information and research on
Sukur is contained in the Sukur
website that we are in the process of developing. Thus is a long
term project.
In 2001 we began a new phase of the project that
focuses on "Material signatures of practice, agency and world view: the
ethnoarchaeology and archaeology of chiefly residences in the Mandara mountains."
An edited but not updated selection from our grant
application to the SSHRC is available. Please note that it has been
overtaken by events in several areas. For example the graduate student
personnel has changed and we began with an abbreviated first season primarily
of survey in December 2001- February 2002. A report
on the first field season is available, as is a slideshow.
Fast Internet access is needed to appreciate the slideshow.
During
a longer second season from September to December 2002 we excavated two sites
and carried out historical work. The excavations caused us to rethink the functions
of the sites as is evident from the preliminary report
and the slideshow
we subsequently produced.
The Mandara
Mountains Home Page prepared by our colleague
Gerhard Müller-Kosack contains much valuable material in several media
on the ethnology and other aspects of the Mandara moutains region.
3. The Bibliography
of Ethnoarchaeology
and Related Studies
For some years I have been accumulating a bibliography
of ethnoarchaeology and related studies, partly for purposes of teaching, partly
because I was engaged with Carol Kramer in writing , Ethnoarchaeology in
Action, and needed a bibliographic data base to work from.
If you haven't used this bibliography before or have
forgotten how the keywords work, go to the introduction.
Otherwise the latest version of this bibliography, which is keyword searchable
by any word processing software, can be accessed in *.pdf format through the
link:
Ethnoarchaeology Bibliography
The bibliography has been noted
by the Scout Report of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and by 
The
Social Science Information Gateway "Making sense of the Internet for social
scientists"
But if you have Procite 4.0.3 or higher
you can access the source files directly and
can do much more searching of the database, preparation of topical bibliographies,
and the like. To do this:
Hold down the SHIFT key
and click on the .pdt file listed below
and a Save dialogue box will appear. Repeat to download the .pdx file:
Ethnarky.pdt
Ethnarky.pdx
You are free to make use of these files for non-commercial purposes.
BUT if you do, consider yourself under a moral
obligation to send me additional materials for inclusion:
articles, theses, or whatever.
4. Ethnoarchaeology
in Action
Nicholas David and Carol Kramer.
2001. Cambridge University Press.
Paperback 0-521-66779-8 $US32.95; Hardback 0-521-66105-6 $US90.00
As the blurb says:
This is a first and comprehensive study
of what remains, despite its centrality and multiple linkages, one of anthropology’s
lesser known subdisciplines. First developed as the study of ethnographic
material culture from archaeological perspectives, it has expanded its
scope and relevance over the past half century especially to cultural and
social anthropology. The authors are leading practitioners, and their theoretical
approaches embrace both the processualism of the New Archeology and the
post-processualism of the 1980s and 90s. The book takes a case-study approach
and is balanced in its geographic and topical coverage, including consideration
of materials in French and German. Three introductory chapters introduce
the subject and its history, survey the broad range of theory required,
and discuss field methods and ethics. Ten topical chapters treat formation
processes, subsistence, the study of artifacts and style, settlement systems,
site structure and architecture, specialist craft production, trade and
exchange, and mortuary practices and ideology. The book concludes with
an appreciation of ethnoarchaeology’s contributions, actual and potential,
and of its place within anthropology. Generously illustrated, it includes
photographs of many leading ethnoarchaeologists in action.
I may later add supplementary materials but for the
moment I am only putting up on the web one figure that reproduced badly
in the book, for which I apologize. It is a particularly unfortunate as
I had put a great deal of work into integrating into one figure information
provided by Pierre and Anne-Marie Pétrequin (1990, 1993) on their
fascinating work on the manufacture and distribution of axes and adzes
in western Papua. So here, for those who care, is
Figure 6.7
Simplified map of east-central Irian Jaya (Indonesian New Guinea)
showing the Highlands (shaded) and Van Rees mountains, main peaks, major
rivers, and some government centers. Selected quarries are indicated, together
with the main areas of distribution (hatched) of rock from the Yeleme and
Mumyeme quarries, and the areas of distribution of axes, adzes, and, to
the north, adjustable ax-adzes (haches à pince et tête
pivotante). Names of ethnic groups are underlined. Data from Pétrequin
and Pétrequin (1990) and other sources.
5. The Mandara+
Bibliography
The Mandara+ bibliography is a research tool designed
primarily but not exclusively for the use of the authors of a book, currently
in preparation, on metallurgy in the Mandara mountains. It contains references
on the Mandara mountains and its peoples that we have collected over
the years plus other references used in our publications on Mandara
topics. Anyone is welcome to supply corrections (and there are many to be
made) and additional references. Please copy the very simple format of the
bibliography -- e.g., minimize capitalization in titles -- and supply the
fullest possible information including authors' first and middle names wherever
possible. This bibliography has also been noted by
The links take you to the bibliography
(in .pdf format) and, if you have ProCite 4.03 or later, the corresponding
*.pdt and *pdx files.
Hold down the SHIFT key and click on the .pdt file
and a Save dialogue box will appear.
Repeat to download the .pdx file.
6. Videos
By a combination of preparation and luck I began making ethnographic videos,
primarily with ethnoarchaeological purposes in mind, in 1984. Videography
has since become an integral part of fieldwork although a prime aim -- to
discuss the work of artisans and others while sitting and watching video footage
with them -- has been frustrated by my inability to bring informants, videotape
and a functioning television set together while in the field. On the two occasions
before my small NTSC set blew up, with the Mafa ironmaster Dokwaza and the
Sirak potter Gobway, it was highly productive.
All four programmes listed below are designed for a variety of audiences
including senior high school and university students of anthropology, archaeology,
materials science and African studies, the ‘intelligent viewer’ of North
American PBS stations, and of course Africans in all walks of life.
1988 Dokwaza: last of the African iron masters.
(50 mins.)
1990 Vessels of the spirits: pots and people in North Cameroon.
(50 mins.)
1995 Black Hephaistos: exploring culture and science in African
iron working. (48 mins.)
1999 Regenerating Sukur: male initiation in the Mandara Mountains.
(22 mins.)
Click for information on these programmes
All these videos are available for sale from the Department
of Communications Media, University of Calgary, Calgary AB, Canada
T2N 1N4. Barbara Murray [Tel. (403) 220-3709; Email: bmurray@ucalgary.ca])
is the person to contact.
7. Teaching
I finished regular teaching in Fall 2001.
Because some may find such material useful, I
am leaving some course syllabi
and other materials on the web for the moment.
For information, follow the link to my:
Teaching Page
Meanwhile ... to achieve success
in writing exams ... all you have to do is
follow the
A route
8. Societies, Administrative
and Other
Society of Africanist Archaeologists
The main functions of the society, with a membership of some
200 international scholars, are to produce a bulletin, Nyame Akuma,
organize biennial conferences, and generally to complement the work of
the more rarely meeting Pan-African Congress on Prehistory and Related
Studies. The 18th Biennial Meeting is to be held in Bergen, Norway, in
2004.
The society has a web
page. It provides information on the upcoming conference and has many other
useful links. There is also a SAfA mailing list.
Reseau Méga-Tchad
The Reseau comprises scholars
of many disciplines who are interested primarily in the human sciences
as they relate to the peoples of the greater basin of Lake Chad and its
surrounds in Central Africa. It publishes a bulletin,
Méga-Tchad (ISSN 0997-4547),
and holds international colloquia every two to three years, most recently
(June 1999) on the theme of Children
in Leiden and Utrecht Universities. The proceedings are regularly
published, the last to have appeared being:
Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Daniel Barreteau, and Uwe Siebert (eds) 1997.
L'homme
et l'eau dans le bassin du Lac Tchad. Paris: Editions de l'ORSTOM.
(ISSN 0767-2896; ISBN 2-7099-1373-90)
Christian Seignobos and Éric Thys (eds) 1998. Des taurins
et des hommes: Cameroun, Nigéria. Paris: Editions de l'ORSTOM.
(ISSN 1278-348X; ISBN 2-7099-1419-0)
To facilitate intercommunications, there is a mailing list: mega-tchad@mae.u-paris10.fr.
9. On Writing
an Article for Publication
Over a decade ago I was asked to talk to graduate students about writing an article.
The talk was a success and a revised version was later adapted by M. Bisby for
biologists and published in the Canadian Federation of Biological Sciences
Bulletin (1989) 7 (1):26-29 (with a less than perfect translation into French).
I was asked to give it again in 1999 and decided to put it on the WWW. Here
is the link.
Nicholas David, Ph.D.
Faculty Professor of Archaeology
University of Calgary, Calgary AB
Canada T2N 1N4
Tel. (403) 220-5227; Fax. (403) 282-9567
You can send email to:ndavid@ucalgary.ca
This page has been visited literally ...MILLIONS...
of times
and only by the best kind of people.
Page last modified ... on or after 1 March 2004