Baraza: February 3, 2023
Dr. Khalidi is CR1 researcher at CNRS and alumnus of the UF in Dar es Salaam study abroad program. Her publications include: “Survival kit for the afterlife or instruction manual for prehistorians? Staging artefact production in middle Neolithic cemetery Kadruka 23, Upper Nubia, Sudan.” Antiquity (co-author, 2021); “9000 years of human lakeside adaptation in the Ethiopian Afar: fisher-foragers and the first pastoralists in the Lake Khalidi – CV – 7 Abhe basin during the African Humid Period.” Quaternary Science Reviews (co-author, 2020); and “Chronicle of a destruction foretold: a belated reassessment of the preservation status of Neolithic habitation sites in the Kadruka concession (Northern Dongola Reach, Sudan).” Sudan & Nubia (co-author, 2019).
Lamya Khalidi, with the Université Côte d’Azur and Fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University, presented “The human response to climate change in the Horn of Africa: a case study of Ethiopia’s Afar Rift during the Holocene.” She explores the paleogeology and paleoclimatology of the Afar Rift region in Ethiopia to understand how our human ancestors adapted to climatic changes. Examination of the obsidian “trade” allowed her to identify that ancient herders were in extensive contact with agricultural communities of other cultures. Despite this, ancient herders did not adopt an agricultural lifestyle, leading her to conclude that this was a conscious choice. This choice might stem from the fact that herders identified high levels of mobility as more suitable to a region whose climate was in constant flux. She provides evidence that settlements could be abandoned and submerged due to rising lake levels. As lake levels decreased, humans would build again on the retreating shoreline. This was a cyclical pattern, yet climatic changes related to planetary heating cast doubt upon the future of climate in this region of the world and human responses to these changes. Lamya’s research also raises interesting questions concerning the demographic make-up of ancient populations of the region, mobility patterns, cultural exchange, and influence.
Recap written by Cory D. Satter