8th International Workshop for African Archaeobotany (IWAA)

The 8th International Workshop for African Archaeobotany was organized at the Modena and Reggio Emilia University by LPP- Laboratory of Palynology and Palaeobotany and was hosted by the Department of Life Science:

Modena is a historically important town, built on a Roman-Medieval urban map with spectacular Italian architecture, located in the Po Valley of northern Italy. The primary focus of IWAA research and discussion has been on seeds/fruits and palaeoethnobotany, but in recent years, topics have been extended more to related fields of research dealing with the relationship between humans and plants/environment. Therefore contributions dealing with macroremains, phytoliths, non pollen palynomorphs and pollen, analysed in multidisciplinary archaeo-environmental perspective, are welcome. Environmental reconstruction, ethnological and linguistic studies will be fruitfully integrated in thematic interdisciplinary sessions.

The 2009 conference – IWAA6 – was held in Egypt, hosted by Helwan University, and the chief organizer was Ahmed Gamal-El-Din Fahmy who passed away in December 2013. The IWAA8 workshop planned for Modena is dedicated to his memory. In honour of Ahmed’s contributions to African archaeobotany the IWAA8 organizational committee will hold a competition to select an African graduate student or young academic who will present a paper to the meeting as the “Prof. Ahmed G. Fahmy Memorial Speaker”. The IWAA8 committee will secure funding to cover the airfare/accommodation/subsistence costs for the selected individual. Additional details on this competition, the selection criteria, and application instructions will be sent to the IWAA maillist in the coming weeks.Workshop participants may present their research in form of a short presentation or poster. There will also be a laboratory session and participants are invited to bring archaeobotanical material for discussion. Microscopes for viewing both macro- and micro- remains will be available.

Documents

• Conference Web Page
• Conference Proceedings: Plants and People in the African Past: Progress in African Archaeobotany (2018), edited by Anna Maria Mercuri, A. Catherine D’Andrea, Rita Fornaciari and Alexa Höhn