Indian Ocean Archaeology 2016: Year of Crises

Usually our archaeological presentations and reports give a picture of steady progress in the building of knowledge. Sometimes however, we have a cascade of crises, but natural and cultural, and this has been such a year in the Western Indian Ocean. In this talk, Dr. Wright will begin with a project driven by a natural crisis: the loss of important coastal sites to the increasingly rapid rise in sea level in the Comorian Archipelago. Then he will move on to modern cultural crisis in archaeology in Madagascar, driven by economic deficits and national politics, but effecting the research of but Malagasy archaeology students and visiting foreign researchers, as well as Madagascar's national heritage collections. In spite of the difficulties, he and his colleagues have made good progress this year on issues of dealing with fragile marginal environments, ancient trade systems, and the first steps toward the emergence of states.