1 00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:26,930 Oh, I wasn't a monster that may be rather and usually by wishing you all a happy first week anniversary of Brexit. 2 00:00:26,930 --> 00:00:37,320 I apologise, but I could not manage bringing flowers or cake, but as they say, you know, you still got that covered. 3 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:53,730 So but I'm rather disappointed with the fact that my magic did not work on the on the projector. 4 00:00:53,730 --> 00:01:08,560 Yes. Yes, yes. The reason being that someone told me that power corrupts, but power corrupts absolutely. 5 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:15,100 I didn't want it to corrupt you, certainly not in the presence of the judge. 6 00:01:15,100 --> 00:01:23,320 And I, it would go back home to Cape Town. Yeah, you know. But now that these formalities are over? 7 00:01:23,320 --> 00:01:28,690 Allow me to get into the subject of my talk. 8 00:01:28,690 --> 00:01:36,370 So why is contemporary Africa poor? That is a question that elicits emotions. 9 00:01:36,370 --> 00:01:40,900 And some of them even very strong. 10 00:01:40,900 --> 00:01:45,670 So if you had asked me, why is contemporary Africa poor? 11 00:01:45,670 --> 00:01:55,360 The honest truth is that I don't know. But nevertheless, there are some thoughts as an archaeologist. 12 00:01:55,360 --> 00:02:02,080 One of the things that fascinates me is that I operate in two worlds. 13 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:09,490 The first is the world of African archaeology and deep history, which shows this amazing Africa. 14 00:02:09,490 --> 00:02:12,430 And indeed, Africa is very beautiful. It's stunning. 15 00:02:12,430 --> 00:02:24,280 You can use all those adjectives, and indeed, the African past is quite rich in terms of outstanding heritage from Lalibela in Ethiopia. 16 00:02:24,280 --> 00:02:35,100 You know, these contentious objects, you know, which we are perhaps going to return tomorrow or the day after. 17 00:02:35,100 --> 00:02:39,930 And and and it doesn't matter whatever you are in the continent, in the Northeast, 18 00:02:39,930 --> 00:02:47,160 you have these stunning from memory Nubian times and indeed Africa was what was connected. 19 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:51,420 It was part of the it was part of the of the global world. 20 00:02:51,420 --> 00:02:58,770 But then if we come to the present, the Africa of today is alluded by prosperity. 21 00:02:58,770 --> 00:03:04,920 But few of us recognise that as the world's second largest continent, actually, 22 00:03:04,920 --> 00:03:15,720 Africa is so vast that you can fit all the sizes of these are very big and influential nations into India Africa. 23 00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:21,880 So I guess the reason why we have this slide is that Africa is not a country. 24 00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:27,640 It is a continent that is so, so, so, so, so diverse and and so big. 25 00:03:27,640 --> 00:03:35,260 And with that in mind, I'm also going to be making sure that I contextualise the remarks that I that 26 00:03:35,260 --> 00:03:42,490 I say so I gave you the world of the archaeologist where everything is great. 27 00:03:42,490 --> 00:03:50,620 But the Africa that I live in is characterised by corruption, you know, anti the corruption. 28 00:03:50,620 --> 00:04:00,250 The good thing about that corruption is that it involves Africa's ruling elite and the companies that are based here in the global West, 29 00:04:00,250 --> 00:04:05,140 you know, French company, British companies and so on, which is why. 30 00:04:05,140 --> 00:04:14,200 And this is not to say anything bad about the courts, but no one gets arrested for corruption in Africa or prosecuted for that matter. 31 00:04:14,200 --> 00:04:18,340 And they it and so on. That is the Africa that we that we live in. 32 00:04:18,340 --> 00:04:28,870 It is a laboratory for carers as well as suffering and that poverty trying to text, for example, Africa and indeed. 33 00:04:28,870 --> 00:04:34,900 So the challenge then, is that as an archaeologist who is on the one hand, 34 00:04:34,900 --> 00:04:41,980 you are working with these communities that are long gone, but they left their material remains. 35 00:04:41,980 --> 00:04:48,520 And on the other, you are working in this continent where poverty is everywhere. 36 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:58,000 So what do you do? Can you use the past to try and understand or contribute to wealth creation? 37 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:08,410 And the other thing so that is the whole purpose of the research that myself and colleagues have been doing over the past few years. 38 00:05:08,410 --> 00:05:18,730 So in other words, can we use the insights from archaeology to develop problem-solving outcomes, especially at grassroots level? 39 00:05:18,730 --> 00:05:22,960 And can we also leverage that to do policy? 40 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:26,500 So that's that that is one way. 41 00:05:26,500 --> 00:05:39,790 But, you know, highlighting all these points, what I would do is that I will quickly discuss one case study, which is that of a great Zimbabwe. 42 00:05:39,790 --> 00:05:53,140 And I saw my colleague SIM Guy here who perhaps he has also had this joke, which says that names have got a meaning because I mean, 43 00:05:53,140 --> 00:06:03,940 Zimbabwe is the only country that is named after and ruins from the past, and at the moment, the country is in ruins as well as it were. 44 00:06:03,940 --> 00:06:11,950 So, so so I'm not saying don't remember, you can't leave after archaeological sites takes good statistics. 45 00:06:11,950 --> 00:06:12,680 Don't get me wrong. 46 00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:22,600 But the most important thing about the Great Zimbabwe is that the research that we have been doing is aimed at understanding production, 47 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:33,250 what are the mechanics of production and also the distribution of resources within and outside Great Zimbabwe? 48 00:06:33,250 --> 00:06:39,700 What is the nature of labour organisation? What is the nature of wealth accumulation and inequality? 49 00:06:39,700 --> 00:06:46,060 And hopefully out of that, distil some lessons that we can say, OK, 50 00:06:46,060 --> 00:06:54,280 if they were doing this during the time of Great Zimbabwe and other social formations, why are they not doing it today? 51 00:06:54,280 --> 00:07:00,100 And perhaps that is the reason why you know, Africa could be put. 52 00:07:00,100 --> 00:07:07,970 Here we go. Right. So one of these strategies that we have adopted is just excavations. 53 00:07:07,970 --> 00:07:24,430 You generate materials as well as dates and also applying different techniques to delineate at the settlement sequence and identify activity areas. 54 00:07:24,430 --> 00:07:30,130 Where are they doing production? And also these days, there are new techniques. 55 00:07:30,130 --> 00:07:43,000 Such is a light scanning. So from remote sensing, from the air, trying to understand the landscape and also to do some terrain modelling. 56 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:54,700 This is our work which is in progress. But just to give you an idea in terms of where do we get the information that we use to support our hypothesis? 57 00:07:54,700 --> 00:07:59,020 And Amy mentioned fireworks. 58 00:07:59,020 --> 00:08:04,840 So here is an example of how those fireworks work. 59 00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:13,090 So I mentioned the importance of tradition, the importance of technology as well as production. 60 00:08:13,090 --> 00:08:21,100 So great Zimbabwe is a centre that was heavily invested in multiple branches of production. 61 00:08:21,100 --> 00:08:28,300 One of them, which is a medal of production, Great Zimbabwe, is also known as a centre for gold production. 62 00:08:28,300 --> 00:08:34,270 The gold, which was circulated within the wider Indian Ocean region. 63 00:08:34,270 --> 00:08:44,140 So these are crucibles, which are vessels which were used for different stages in the production of up of gold. 64 00:08:44,140 --> 00:08:48,100 So there are quite a load off of these remains. 65 00:08:48,100 --> 00:08:56,230 What we sought to do was to apply our techniques from material science techniques, 66 00:08:56,230 --> 00:09:06,610 from geological sciences to reconstruct the processes that were taking place in these in these vessels. 67 00:09:06,610 --> 00:09:14,440 So when you talk about China, when you talk about India and so on from the Middle Ages and so on, 68 00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:24,910 these remains that you have on the board be they are so fundamental in the sense that that is where the gold was processed. 69 00:09:24,910 --> 00:09:33,850 But as with many stories about Africa, its contribution to the evolution of the world is never told. 70 00:09:33,850 --> 00:09:45,740 So when you cut those pieces and you studied them using various techniques, here we have the scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive mode. 71 00:09:45,740 --> 00:09:52,000 You can identify faces. You can also determine the composition of the of the clays. 72 00:09:52,000 --> 00:10:01,420 So here some of these clays and we are rich in alumina, which is quite heat resistant and refractory. 73 00:10:01,420 --> 00:10:06,760 You could also get an idea in terms of where they were sourcing the clays. 74 00:10:06,760 --> 00:10:17,650 These are quite dramatic or would be from great sources as reflected by those minerals, such as the ghoneim and and eliminate. 75 00:10:17,650 --> 00:10:24,010 So what we can do is we can also find the sources of the clay on the on the landscape. 76 00:10:24,010 --> 00:10:31,330 And the good thing is that all this technology is pointing to a local resource. 77 00:10:31,330 --> 00:10:38,290 So the crucibles they aid the fire inside or fired from from outside. 78 00:10:38,290 --> 00:10:43,000 In terms of performance characteristics, there are advantages and disadvantages of that. 79 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:55,900 This one was or is in the sister general's cabinet of curiosity in Cape Town, and it was I used for processing brass. 80 00:10:55,900 --> 00:10:59,590 So metal is just one of the branches of production. 81 00:10:59,590 --> 00:11:09,310 There's also cattle production. There's quite a lot of tonnes of cattle born from different areas of good Zimbabwe infrastructure 82 00:11:09,310 --> 00:11:15,970 for cattle keeping and cattle production and use was also embedded in other things, 83 00:11:15,970 --> 00:11:24,400 such as religion. Then there was also subsistence and food production, the cultivation of bombardments, 84 00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:32,290 which is quite a very, very interesting crop, particularly from a DNA point of view. 85 00:11:32,290 --> 00:11:37,600 And there are so many things that you can do with with that crop. 86 00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:45,680 But that's a conversation for another day. There's also finger millet, millet and also some vegetables. 87 00:11:45,680 --> 00:11:54,190 So this is a dried clone, which is a tropical, you know, weed or grass, whatever name you can call it. 88 00:11:54,190 --> 00:11:59,460 But it's also edible in many communities that also are good. 89 00:11:59,460 --> 00:12:09,000 Storage facilities, and there's also information, especially from some Arabic writers, that places such as Great Zimbabwe and so on. 90 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:12,810 They were exporting food after the Indian Ocean. 91 00:12:12,810 --> 00:12:20,160 So there are those dynamics. You have cattle, you have crops and plants and other food. 92 00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:28,350 A study is going on and there's also amazing science, engineering and craft to be vocabularies or the cosmology is shaping. 93 00:12:28,350 --> 00:12:35,730 This knowledge might be different to the way in which we constitute our engineering knowledge, 94 00:12:35,730 --> 00:12:39,450 attends our office forces, compressive forces and so on. 95 00:12:39,450 --> 00:12:46,380 But if you look at this Amazon we built of these dry stone walls, 96 00:12:46,380 --> 00:12:55,650 blocks of granite placed one on top of the other without any binder sites is mortar, about up to 11 metres high. 97 00:12:55,650 --> 00:13:00,030 In some cases they are, let's say, two metres three metres high. 98 00:13:00,030 --> 00:13:03,960 So if you drive that small car, the smart cars like I do, 99 00:13:03,960 --> 00:13:09,570 you can literally drive it on top of this of this wall just to give you an idea in terms of the. 100 00:13:09,570 --> 00:13:15,170 But if you drive those big American ones, well, that won't work. 101 00:13:15,170 --> 00:13:23,400 I'm one of the things that we are also doing is that within the broader landscape where where the resources are coming from. 102 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:37,680 So which also then lead us into exploding networks of production, as well as networks of speculation involving gold, iron grain and other things. 103 00:13:37,680 --> 00:13:47,160 And thanks to advances in archaeology in science, we are able to deploy a number of techniques to understand the movement of these things, 104 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:52,470 which speaks to the vibrant nature of overproduction and so on. 105 00:13:52,470 --> 00:14:02,320 Then there's also the other thing. So then there's also the other issue of imported objects, which are in archaeology. 106 00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:15,570 In most cases, if you see objects which are made in one area, in another area, they are seen as exotics and they are also seen as a prestige goods. 107 00:14:15,570 --> 00:14:25,680 They are also seen as as wealth. But what is coming up here is that you don't have many of these objects, 108 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:34,980 so less than less than less than 100 over a settlement, which was occupied for around 500 or so years. 109 00:14:34,980 --> 00:14:44,250 So the issue is that perhaps these are gifts that were given to the rulers to ease trade and exchange relations and so on. 110 00:14:44,250 --> 00:14:48,960 And the sites might not have been as symbols of of prestige and so on. 111 00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:54,390 Then there's also the Arab feeling that particularly in the past few years in Africa, 112 00:14:54,390 --> 00:14:58,050 there were these claims that, well, they are, you know, Italian as people. 113 00:14:58,050 --> 00:15:01,860 They are bringing these objects that do not last long and so on. 114 00:15:01,860 --> 00:15:07,050 But the lesson that we get from these places and shifting focus to mapping is that there 115 00:15:07,050 --> 00:15:13,470 is these Chinese Song Dynasty porcelain rituals that government didn't do around A.D. 70. 116 00:15:13,470 --> 00:15:21,510 So if these people could negotiate for these lasting materials, why are we failing today? 117 00:15:21,510 --> 00:15:36,810 And also to say that in the 17th century, Britain used to export raw materials to the Yoruba in Nigeria, and you're about to make these these bronzes. 118 00:15:36,810 --> 00:15:43,920 But now the system is is is reversed. So I hope you get the sense that I'm saying that, 119 00:15:43,920 --> 00:15:52,170 that the mindset that it used to take place back in the in the continent, that's just more of the same. 120 00:15:52,170 --> 00:15:58,980 The other thing is that there was a vibrant trade at networking across across Africa, 121 00:15:58,980 --> 00:16:07,080 which are thanks to the Benin Congress, which divided Africa into these different partitions, is no longer there. 122 00:16:07,080 --> 00:16:15,960 Is an absolute game, it is much easier for me to meet my colleague from Senegal in Paris than for us to meet in Africa, 123 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:24,030 thanks to the two people in Congress. What is also what this has done is that these these Trump, which is a very dangerous one, 124 00:16:24,030 --> 00:16:27,900 which is that development in Africa is only externally driven. 125 00:16:27,900 --> 00:16:31,410 You need those foreign objects, such as the teapot that I showed you. 126 00:16:31,410 --> 00:16:37,010 And you also need aid for Africa to develop the best use of this dirty from Griggs and Barbary. 127 00:16:37,010 --> 00:16:40,680 They were using and exploiting food and so on. 128 00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:49,680 So would be to cut the long story short, Ben, what is happening is that is Africa is not producing anything, 129 00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:59,280 which is why the research that we are doing are combining village science and looking into issues of food security, traditional medicines. 130 00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:03,750 There are also challenges that, you know, do we have the skills, you know, 131 00:17:03,750 --> 00:17:13,080 does our curriculum and power as to convince you to translate what we learn in the archaeology to come up with that spin offs? 132 00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:18,990 Or we leave that to people in the side of business school or in the Blavatnik and the people in the Blavatnik. 133 00:17:18,990 --> 00:17:23,640 They say, Oh, OK, that's archaeology. That is not investing. Let us do artificial intelligence. 134 00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:27,540 You know, is this those kinds of those kinds of things? These are these are big. 135 00:17:27,540 --> 00:17:32,040 These are big questions. But nevertheless, there is cause there's cause for hope. 136 00:17:32,040 --> 00:17:42,060 So the challenge that I have with you all is that if you think you. 137 00:17:42,060 --> 00:17:56,430 So in conclusion, Ben, I think, would be many reasons why Africa is poor, but the main one is that Africa fails to stick to be to the basics. 138 00:17:56,430 --> 00:18:02,130 I know that there are many, many, many reasons, most of them political and ended and so on. 139 00:18:02,130 --> 00:18:06,870 But if America produces its food. 140 00:18:06,870 --> 00:18:15,420 Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, there are so many things that could happen. There's also need for, you know, good governance and so on. 141 00:18:15,420 --> 00:18:19,470 And there must also be, you know, consequences for everyone. 142 00:18:19,470 --> 00:18:23,220 So I'm sure I bet our courts, we will we will work. 143 00:18:23,220 --> 00:18:28,650 And if I'm caught up to be an I will also, you know, I pay for paper, pay for that. 144 00:18:28,650 --> 00:18:44,501 I was told that my time is is over. So with that, I wish you a happy Friday.