Overview

In 2011 and 2012, Dr Gerry Wait (then Nexus Heritage) and Dr Ibrahima Thiaw (Institute Fundamental d’Afrique Noire: IFAN, Dakar) undertook an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) project in Kouilou Department in the southwest region of the Republic of the Congo. The initiative had been commissioned by SRK Consulting UK for Elemental Minerals Ltd relating to a proposed potash mine. These landscapes were little known in terms of the sites and monuments from the distant and more recent past. That the area was important in the understanding of migrations along the African coast had been demonstrated in a pioneering set of excavations by Denbow (2012 and 2014). This base line study was undertaken to identify and evaluate cultural resources which might need further investigation. The second part of the study reports on ethnographic surveys undertaken in the same defined area, treating intangible cultural heritage as equally as important parts of the Congo’s cultural heritage and identity. The baseline studies were systematic in that they employed standard best-practice survey techniques but structured on a landscape level. By building upon Denbow’s extensive surveys and small-scale investigations from 30 years earlier the studies have enabled a richer and more nuanced understanding of the Atlantic Coast of Congo during the past millennium.

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9781784919948

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GERRY WAIT has over 35 years of experience as an archaeologist and anthropologist specialising in heritage assessments for Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs). He has worked in over 30 countries, in Europe, Asia and Africa. Gerry has been active in the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and in the Committee on Professional Associations in Archaeology of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA). He is on the editorial board of the Society of American Archaeology’s Advances in Archaeological Practice Journal. He is on the Register of Professional Archaeologists (USA) and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. IBRAHIMA THIAW is one of the leading practitioners in Africanist archaeology, heritage and in Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs). He leads in the Laboratoire d’Archéologie at the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) at the-Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar Senegal. He has worked extensively in the upper Senegal River basin where he conducted multiple Environmental and Social Impact Assessments. He is equally well known for his work on the UNESCO World Heritage site of Goree Island (Dakar). Ibrahima is a very strong advocate of students’ training, community engagement and the decolonization of Archaeological practice in Africa. He has pioneered marine archaeology in Senegal. He is also an active member in Africanist Archaeologists organizations including the PanAfrican Archaeology Association but also on the editorial board of a number of Professional Journals. Gerry and Ibrahima have worked together on many projects in Sub-Saharan archaeology and ethnography since 2009, notably at Sabodala Senegal (published by Archaeopress Publishing in 2016) in Sierra Leone, and in Burkino Faso.

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