On Food, Pots, Gender, Iron, and Archaeological Theory: Interview with Professor Randi Haaland.

Professor Randi Haaland is a Norwegian archaeologist with a distinctive anthropological approach and global research interests. In this conversation, Randi Haaland reflects on her extraordinary and multifaceted engagement with archaeology and Africa for over 50 years, from her formative experience as a young woman among the Fur in Sudan in the mid-1960s, through her research between the processual and post-processual paradigms, to the capacity-building programs she initiated with the support of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). Randi Haaland created her unique path in the archaeology of Africa. This interview shows that it has been the right path towards a novel and in-depth understanding of the human past, especially on food culture, beginnings of food production, gender, and technology.

La professeure Randi Haaland est une archéologue norvégienne réputée pour une approche antropologique distinctive et des intérêts de recherche mondiaux. Dans cette conversation, Randi Haaland réfléchit sur son engagement extraordinaire et multiforme avec lʼarchéologie et lʼAfrique depuis plus de cinquante ans, à partir de son expérience formatrice dʼune jeune femme parmi les Four au Soudan au milieu des années 1960, en passant par ses recherches entre les paradigmes processuel et post-processuel, jusquʼaux programmes de renforcement des capacités quʼelle a initiés avec le soutien de lʼAgence norvégienne de coopération au développement (NORAD). Randi Haaland a créé sa voie unique dans lʼarchéologie de lʼAfrique. Cet entretien montre quʼelle a été la bonne voie vers une compréhension nouvelle et approfondie du passé humain, en particulier sur la culture culinaire, les débuts de la production alimentaire, le genre et la technologie.

From hunter-gatherers to food producers: New dental insights into the Nile Valley population history (Late Paleolithic-Neolithic).

OBJECTIVES: This study presents biological affinities between the last hunter-fisher-gatherers and first food-producing societies from the Nile Valley. We investigate odontometric and dental tissue proportion changes between these populations from the Middle Nile Valley and acknowledge the biological processes behind them. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Dental remains of 329 individuals from Nubia and Central Sudan that date from the Late Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene are studied. Using 3D imaging techniques, we investigated outer and inner metric aspects of upper central incisors, and first and second upper molars. RESULTS: Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic foragers display homogeneous crown dimensions, dental tissue proportions, and enamel thickness distribution. This contrasts with Neolithic trends for significant differences from earlier samples on inner and outer aspects. Finally, within the Neolithic sample differences are found between Nubian and Central Sudanese sites. DISCUSSION: Substantial dental variation appears to have occurred around 6000 bce in the Nile Valley, coinciding with the emergence of food-producing societies in the region. Archeological and biological records suggest little differences in dietary habits and dental health during this transition. Furthermore, the substantial variations identified here would have happened in an extremely short time, a few centuries at most. This does not support in situ diet-related adaptation. Rather, we suggest these data are consistent with some level of population discontinuity between the Mesolithic and Neolithic samples considered here. Complex settlement processes could also explain the differences between Nubia and Central Sudan, and with previous results based on nonmetric traits.