Next to the town of Lobaste in Botswana, lies the ancient Tswana city of Seoke, which was inhabited by approximately 10,000 people in the late 1700s. Google Earth survey and ground verification conducted by a team led by our MAEASaM project manager, Stefania Merlo, in the past 10 years have …
Great Zimbabwe is a renowned UNESCO listed World Heritage Site. This 12th to 16th century capital was one of the most important political and religious centres in Sub-Saharan Africa. Great Zimbabwe is a true mark of what an urban environment means in an ever changing landscape, with its networks reaching …
Cenchrus ciliaris or more commonly known as mosekwangwetsi (Kalanga) or buffalo grass (en.), is a type of perennial, tufted grass that grows in the more arid areas of Southern Africa. In Botswana, the detection of this type of grass can be used to uncover ancient sites such as cattle enclosures …
At the beginning of the MAEASaM project, the first sites we mapped were the UNESCO World Heritage Sites and Tentative World Heritage sites of our partner countries. Here are some images of the World Heritage site of Tiya, which our team in Exeter were lucky enough to visit in 2018. …
Yesterday, MAEASaM and MAHSA ran an online #workshop on #historicalmaps, attended by 135 participants from 24 countries around the globe. Thank you to everyone who attended! MAEASaM’s Ed Burnett and Renier van der Merwe presented on their experience using historical maps in Africa, including the difficulties inherent in often inaccurate …
A beautiful settlement in Zimbabwe that forms part of the Nyanga Complex. An enclosure can clearly be seen in the centre of the settlement with possible middens in the upper right corner. Une belle habitation au Zimbabwe qui fait partie du complexe de Nyanga. On distingue nettement un enclos au …
At MAEASaM we are using historical maps to document archaeological sites, such as in this excerpt from the 1:250,000 series based on early 20th century surveys of Sudan. The map sheet was published in 1944 and can be accessed through https://www.loc.gov/item/87692353/. Sites can then possibly be verified with Google Earth, …
It’s World Space Week, and this year’s theme is “Women in Space”! In keeping with this, MAEASaM’s own Pamela Ochungo, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the BIEA, has been using satellite imagery to investigate traditional wells and their relationship to landcover changes on the Kenya/Ethiopia border. As she says: “At the …
Here at MAEASaM we didn’t miss Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp too much on Monday, since we still have Google Earth and beautiful sites like Kilwa in Tanzania to marvel at! The picture on the left was taken by our Co-Investigator Professor Stephanie Wynne-Jones, and really shows off the beautiful architecture …
We aim to locate archaeological sites then ‘net’ them in the Arches-MAEASaM repository to help protect them. Plus some of us go fishing for real… MAEASaM’s Database Manager, Mahmoud Abdelrazek and coastal environment expert, Dr Mamadou Thior from Senegal, know how to celebrate World Maritime Day. …