While on holidays (yes, we all got to enjoy nice off-time with families during August! ;-) the research did not stop completely and, as a result, we came back to work with two nice surprises on our desks!
First, the seminal publication of the project, with the results of the fieldwork that did set the ball rolling, is out in Antiquity! The paper explores the available literature on ethnography of rain-fed cultivation in arid and hyper arid drylands, concentrating on the Sahara. Then it reports the results of the pilot project we conducted in Sudan, in the Al Khiday area on modern fields of pearl millet. Click here to find a read-only full version of the paper.
Lancelotti C, Biagetti S, Zerboni A, Usai D and Madella M. 2019. The archaeology and ethnoarchaeology of rain-fed cultivation in arid and hyper-arid North Africa. Antiquity, Volume 93, Issue 370, pp. 1026-1039.
A few days later, we received our printed copy of a dissemination piece stemming from the project, on the relevance of Humanities in the debate on Planetary Wellbeing. Planetary Wellbeing is one of the core strategies of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, promoted by the actual Chancellor of the University Jaume Casals with the intention of equip the institution with a vision committed to tackling the major challenges facing global society in the 21st century and to generate transformative energies to reshape both the university and its urban environment (more on this on a following post). In the framework of this initiative I was invited to participate in the roundtable QUÈ ÉS LA SALUT PLANETÀRIA? VIDA EN ELS LÍMITS DEL PLANETA (What is Planetary Wellbeing? Life at the Planet's Limits) organised by the Escola Europea de Humanitats. Some of the reflections that were proposed during the roundtable were published in La Maleta de Portbou a bi-monthly magazines on Humanities and Economics. My contribution is a comment on how the Humanities in general, and in specific Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology, are fundamental in the debate on Planetary Wellbeing and can contribute to create awareness on many modern issues in much more effective ways than other disciplines. The piece (in Spanish) is published in the September-October number of the journal.
Lancelotti C. 2019. Las humanidades y la promocción del bienestar planetario. La Maleta de Portbou 37, pp. 37-42.