Current Research

L-R. [1]. Excavating at Yikpabongo, Koma Land, Northern Ghana, January 2010 (see Current Field Projects & Ghana Koma). [2.]. Excavation in progress in the Nyoo shrine, Tongo Hills, Northern Ghana, July 2006 (see Current Field Projects & Tallensi 1). [3]. Examining 'thunderstones'. Fetish Market, Lome, Togo, May 2008 (see Current Field Projects) [4]. At the "Tree of Life" site, Bahrain, April 2010 (photos. T. Insoll). [5]. Excavating at Yikpabongo, Koma Land, Northern Ghana, January 2011 (see Current Field Projects)

My current research is focused on various projects. Most recently (January 2011) I was again involved in the excavations taking place under the direction of Dr Ben Kankpeyeng at Yikpabongo in Koma Land. I am also involved in renewed archaeological fieldwork in Bahrain with the construction of a new Islamic Archaeological Museum at the Al-Khamis Mosque site (see Current Field Projects), and linked with this project I co-wrote with Dr Rachel MacLean An Archaeological Guide to Bahrain that has just been published (2011, Oxford, Archaeopress - see Publications). In addition to the collection of further primary data and its display, this is also allowing a critique and evaluation of the presentation and interpretation of the archaeology of Islam in the Arabian Gulf that will be published in due course. I am also currently co-curating with Dr Venetia Porter the Africa section of the Hajj exhibition that will be held in the British Museum (March-June 2012) under the overall curation and organization of Dr Porter. In connection with this in November 2010 I collected for the British Museum contemporary Hajj souvenirs in Bamako and Timbuktu, Mali, that will form part of the exhibition (see Mali - Hajj).

My current writing projects include a monograph on theoretical approaches in African archaeology, Contexts, Materials, Persons, and Animals. Theoretical Explorations in African Archaeology to be published by Oxford University Press. The basic premise underlying this study is the reconstruction of ontology - being - and exploring this ontology in relation to persons, animals, materials, and contexts. To achieve this, various detailed case studies are being considered primarily from the Iron Age and from Western and Central Africa. The second is a long term project on the archaeology of indigenous rituals and religion, and the materiality of shrines, medicine, and sacrifice in Northern Ghana. Both reflect my interests in African archaeology and rituals and religions, and my research to date has been a cumulative process in attempting to consider this, from the necessarily narrow focus of a PhD, in my case on trade and Islam in 'medieval' West Africa, through a broader treatment of the archaeology of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa, and then of the archaeology of Islam with reference to its total global and chronological framework (see Publications). This in turn led to a consideration of world religions, and ultimately to an exploration of ritual and religion in wider contexts, all with regard to their respective theoretical and methodological relationships with archaeology (see Publications).

Inevitably, broader questions and new interests emerged in this process, and these were explored in brief in a book, Archaeology. The Conceptual Challenge (see Publications). The latter was a theoretical study which needed further working through in relation to detailed empirical case studies. Hence since 2004 I have been running a field project (with Dr Ben Kankpeyeng of the University of Ghana, Legon, and Dr Rachel MacLean also of the University of Manchester - see Current Field Project) entitled, 'The Archaeology of Ritual, Shrines, and Sacrifice among the Tallensi of Northern Ghana'. This project has a variety of aims, some of which explicitly relate to the issues raised in the Conceptual Challenge. These project aims can be categorised as; first, reconstructing the occupation sequence in the region which prior to this research had not been archaeologically investigated. Second, assessing the archaeological signatures and complexity of indigenous religious forms (e.g. ancestral and earth cults, 'totemism', 'animism') in the area of study, the Tongo Hills. Third, examining the materiality of shrines, the substances from which they are constructed, how they are franchised, and how they are used for medicinal purposes (this element of the research has now been expanded following the invitation by Dr Ben Kankpeyeng to participate in his Komaland project - see Current Field Project and Ghana Koma). Fourth, considering the role of Tallensi ethnography and analogy in interpreting African contexts separated chronologically from the Tallensi 'present', and European prehistoric contexts separated by both time and space from ethnographic analogues which might otherwise enrich interpretation. And, fifth, thinking about the role of the observer in reconstructing and interpreting landscape use (see Ghana Tallensi 1 and Ghana Tallensi 6).

A detailed landscape survey has been completed combined with excavation in extant Tallensi earth and ancestral shrines and abandoned settlement sites (see Current Field Project). This has helped in understanding both the development and change in ritual practices and shrine types over time (see Publications). In so doing, I have been able to question the notion of ‘natural’ as opposed to ‘cultural’ landscapes, and to explore the archaeology of performance in relation to ritual potentially over a 1500 year time period, as well as consider the role of shrines in the construction of personhood and the negotiation of personal destiny, and how through aspects of their materiality, specifically in relation to the interment of pots in earth shrines, statements are potentially being made about gender, power, and fertility. Moreover, I have been able to consider the processes of shrine 'franchising', literally how shrines are franchised via powerful material culture and thus moved to new areas away from the 'mother shrine'. The resonance of the latter for aspects of material in European prehistory is potentially profound and again is something I have explored, based upon the Tallensi material, with reference to the Neolithic of the British Isles (see Publications). The funding for the fieldwork component of this research has been provided by the British Academy (2004-8), the University of Manchester (2006), and the British Institute in Eastern Africa (2005), and from 2008 by the Wellcome Trust.

The co-authored monograph on this project is now in preparation, Temporalising Anthropology. Archaeology in the Talensi Tong Hills, 2004-2009 (Frankfurt, Africa Magna Verlag - see Publications).

[1] Archaeology of Rituals and Religions Seminar, University of Ghana, Legon, May 2008. [2] Visit of Samuel Nkumbaan and William Gblerkpor to the University of Manchester, June 2009 (photos. W. Gblerkpor).

A further writing project that I have just finished is the editing of a substantial 500,000 word handbook, again for Oxford University Press, The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion. This is comprehensive in coverage, ranging from the lower Palaeolithic through to contemporary Druidism and Neo-Paganism, covering all areas of the globe, and examining relevant related subjects such as the senses, the elements, and rites of passage. Another editing project that has recently been completed is a special edition of the journal Anthropology and Medicine, 'Shrines, Substances and Medicine in Africa: Archaeological, Anthropological and Historical Perspectives' that has directly evolved from a conference of the same title held at the Wellcome Trust in London (see Conference).

Besides my own research projects I am also actively involved in those of my research students. I am or have been a supervisor of research projects covering a range of subjects. These include the later historical archaeology of the Eastern African coast, neurophenomenological approaches to the evolution of religion, chemical analysis of archaeological glass from Bahrain and carnelian from western India, mosque architecture and use in Iran, Funj identity and history in the Sudan, the materiality and archaeological implications of Hausa Medicine, and the representation of Islam in British museums. I actively welcome enquiries from prospective research students for any subjects related to my research interests (Contact).