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Networking : Obituaries (obituaries are copied from various web pages; the relevant page from which it is copied is fully referenced)
=== > Peter Lewis Shinnie (1915-2007)
[http://cohesion.rice.edu/centersandinst/safa/news.cfm?doc_id=11192]
see also paper in the African Archaeological Review
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Peter Lewis Shinnie (1915-2007). Peter was a founding member of SAfA, one of the first co-presidents of the society, and founder and editor of SAfA’s news bulletin Nyame Akuma, the first 19 numbers of which were produced with his wife Ama Shinnie from the office in their basement. Peter Shinnie’s archaeological career spanned six decades of research in Africa. During his career he was Head of the Departments of Archaeology at the University of Ghana (1958-1966), the University of Khartoum (1966-1970), and the University of Calgary (1970-1975). Peter was also a talented linguist who spoke and/or read Arabic, ancient and modern Greek, French, German, Egyptian hieroglyphics, as well as ancient and modern Nubian for which he was preparing a lexicon. Many of his undergraduate and graduate students from Africa, Canada, the United States and Europe have gone on to establish professional careers in archaeology. Peter was an active Professor Emeritus in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Calgary. He will be deeply missed by his colleagues not only for his knowledge but for his great wit, generosity, and friendship.
Peter was born in London, England in 1915. He studied history and Egyptology at Oxford University graduating in 1938. He obtained practical, if informal, field training from Mortimer Wheeler at Maiden Castle and at other Roman and Iron Age sites in England. During World War II he served in the RAF first as a bomber pilot and later in intelligence interpreting aerial photographs and identifying and marking Italian archaeological sites as non-targets. After the war, Peter excavated sites in Turkey before taking up the post of Assistant Commissioner (and eventually Commissioner) of Archaeology in the Sudan. Between 1946 and 1958 Peter conducted field research in Sudan developing his lifelong interest in the archaeology of Africa’s more recent past and its contemporary people. In particular Peter saw the need to investigate the development of Sudan’s unique culture apart from Ancient Egypt’s role in Nubia. He began with the excavation of the medieval site of Soba with his first wife Margaret Shinnie, combining archaeological field techniques with historic information and observation of contemporary Nubian practices. He further contributed to the development of archaeology in the Sudan by founding the journal Kush, and by providing collections for the antiquities service which helped to establish Sudan’s National Museum.
In 1956 Peter became Director of Antiquities in Uganda until he was offered the position as Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Ghana in 1958. While building up the department’s facilities, Peter conducted field studies of the ruins of several of West Africa’s medieval and historic states in Nigeria, southern Mauritania, and Ghana. In 1962 Shinnie led the only black African archaeological team that contributed to UNESCO’s rescue programme of sites on the Nile at Aswan during the construction of the High Dam. In 1966 Peter was offered the Chair of Archaeology at the University of Khartoum. Peter took this opportunity to establish excavations at Meroe, the research for which he is perhaps best known.
In 1970 Peter became the head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Calgary but maintained his project at Meroe until 1976 (with a final season in 1983-84). In 1977 he established a new field program in Ghana. Although nominally retired in 1980, Peter continued active field research in Ghana supported by, amongst other institutions, the Asantahene. While investigating the origins of the Gonja and the Asante states and their traditions, always in collaboration with his wife Ama, he continued to write on the Sudan. Peter officially retired from active field work in 1991, but continued to publish on his research until the end of his life. In March 2007 he participated in a celebration of 50 years of Ghanaian independence at the University of Calgary.
Peter was the recipient of many honours for his contribution to Africanist archaeology including honorary life member of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Calgary in 1983, and a Festschrift, An African Commitment, in 1992. In 2004 Peter was awarded Sudan’s prestigious Order of the Two Niles for his contribution to that country’s archaeology. During the conference of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists held in Calgary in June 2006, he was formally presented with the award by the Sudanese Ambassador in a session dedicated to his work. We will remember Peter for a life well lived and look forward to the publication of his memoirs. His was a life of exemplary, passionate and humane commitment to Africa and Africans, and to his relatives and friends.
Predeceased by his son Nicholas, he is survived by his wife Ama, his children Caroline and Paul, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. A memorial service will be held at the Chapel of the Bells, 2720 Centre Street North, Calgary on Monday 16th July at 10:30 am. If anyone wishes to contribute a brief tribute, memory or story, would they please send it to Nic David (ndavid@ucalgary.ca) who will see it is transmitted to the family.
==== > Richard B. Nunoo (-2007)
[http://cohesion.rice.edu/centersandinst/safa/news.cfm?doc_id=5182]
The first African archaeologist of Africa. He worked with Thurstan Shaw at Achimota Museum (the forerunner of the Ghana Museum) and dug at places like Dawu for which he did some of the art work. Independently he excavated sites inland from the coast that were published in Man. He became the director of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board in the late 1950's and thus was the first African director of a major African museum. In 1971 he was the first African executive council member of the Pan African Prehistory Congress. He received many UNESCO and individual African country honors in his time. He taught on retirement in one of the City of new York colleges and gained a following among many young African-American scholars and advanced a knowledge of Africa among a broad community. He guest lectured at many universities in the States in the 1970's including UCLA where he opened a special exhibition on Fante flags. He was always a great supporter of archaeology in Ghana and helped M.Posnansky at Begho considerably. He was a welcoming host and accomplished a great deal for our discipline.
=== > F. Clark Howell (1925-2007)
[http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/fghij/howell_f_clark.html]
see also Wikipedia
F. Clark Howell was born in Kansas in 1925. He was raised on a farm where he became interested in natural history. He served in the United States Navy during World War II. Following the war he studied anthropology and various related biological and geological sciences at the University of Chicago. Professor Howell’s interest in human evolution began with his studies of Neanderthal man. Following his course work Professor Howell taught at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis before moving back to the University of Chicago in 1955. He stayed in Chicago as a Professor and Chairman of the Anthropology Department until 1970.
In 1970 Professor Howell moved to the University of California at Berkeley as a Professor in Paleoanthropology. Today Professor Howell remains at the University of California at Berkeley as a Professor Emeritus where he co-directs the Laboratory for Human Studies.
Professor Howell’s knowledge of the fossil record has been gained firsthand with work in Africa, Asia, and Europe. It is in the field that Professor Howell has gained some of his greatest notoriety. In 1966 he organized and lead the Omo Research Expedition to the Omo Basin of southern Ethiopia to study Pliocene and Pleistocene fossil deposits. Results of these digs revealed teeth and jaw fragments proving that australopithecoid ancestors lived four million years ago, doubling the age of previous estimates of two million years. Professor Howell has also done field work in such areas as Ambrona and Torralba in Spain, and the Acheulian sites of Isimila in Tanzania.
Professor Howell has written countless papers and several books over his career. Among his publications are Early Man of the Time-Life series and African Ecology and Human Evolution. He also holds memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Trustee of the California Academy of Sciences.
=== > Michèle Delneuf (-2006)
[put together from IRD documents]
Following on her university teaching as a prehistorian archaeologist (MA in 1981, Paris X university), Michèle Delneuf's interest focused on the history of the peopling of West and Central Africa during the last 4 or 5,000 years (including present times).
From 1975 to 1983 she did fieldwork and labwork on the East of Mauritania (for her PhD [la céramique néolithique du Sahara occidental, approche archéologique et ethno-archéologique, Paris X university, Jean Courtin as PhD supervisor] and in Mali.
While doing her MA and PhD research on West Africa she worked for UNESCO (1980-1981) writing a simplified version of the Ki-Zerbo edited History of Africa (volume 1), and later for the French Cooperation Ministry (1982-1983) alongside Samuel Sidibé, Director of the Mali National Museum at Bamako. The latter job was to set up the National Database of archaeological sites of Mali.
From 1984 onwards she worked in Cameroon. In the earliest stages she assisted Alain Marliac's surveys and excavations, later specializing herself on the ethno-archaeology of pottery making.
- du Néolithique et de l'Age du Fer en Afrique sub-saharienne au Cameroun septentrional où une grande variété de peuplements actuels imposait d'en démontrer l'ancienneté et l'implication dans l'évolution de milieux de savane ; - et au Cameroun central dans les régions d'écotone forêt-savane où le peuplement des 3 derniers millénaires (récent compris) est fortement impliqué dans l'évolution des paysages .Dans chacune de ces sphères géographiques, la restitution des peuplements s'est appuyée sur une problématique ethno-archéologique consacrée à la céramique, dans le but d'évaluer le caractère conducteur de cette culture matérielle dans la distribution de ces populations et dans celle des familles socio-linguistiques.Dans chaque contexte géographique, les relations entre ces peuplements et les paléo-environnements ont été étudiées sur la base de l'étude des vestiges organiques livrés par les sites archéologiques (charbons et graines par l'anthracologie, palynologie, paleo-faune, etc..). Recherche actuelle localisée dans une partie de l'écotone forêt-savane de la Province de l'Est du Cameroun, en connection avec le nord-ouest de la République Centrafricaine. Le peuplement ancien de cette région (restitué pour le moment sur les deux à trois derniers millénaires) s'inscrit dans une problématique paléo-environnementale et témoigne d'une variété d'aires culturelles qui introduiront les modes de peuplements visibles aujourd'hui.
Zone géographique de compétence : Cameroun ; Mauritanie ; Mali