Archaeology Group

• Archaeology Group
• About the Group
• Research Themes
• Landscape and Townscape Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Bronze Age Settlement
• Niah Cave, Borneo
• Central Androy Project Madagascar
• The Norse settlement of Kilpheder South Uist
• Ethnoarchaeology of South Uist
• Reconstructing house activity
• Animal Bones from Medieval Russia
• The Great Auk and Big Fish on the Isle of Portland
• The Provisioning of Roman towns
• Analysis of Worked Objects from Early Bronze Age Graves
• Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology
• Cultural Resource Management
• Science-based Archaeology
• Technology, Production and Ancient Materials
• Maritime Archaeology
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The Central Androy Project, Madagascar

The Central Androy Project is an multi-disciplinary endeavour which has been running since 1991, with the aim of examining the history of tombs, land-use, and landscape in the extreme south of Madagascar. The extreme south of Madagascar is an area of approx. 20,000 square kilometres of semi-arid grassland and spiny forest known as Androy ("the land of thorns"), and its inhabitants the Tandroy ("people of the land of thorns").

The project is primarily concerned with the recent past of the last 1000 years and in particular with the pre-colonial period between the 15th century and 1900. Some of the specific objectives of the project are to investigate: the origins and development of the early Tandroy kingdom between the 16th-19th centuries; the tombs and sacred forests of the contemporary landscape; the relationship between the extinct flightless elephant bird (Aepyornis) and the earliest human settlement in the south of Madagascar; and to establish the geomorphological and geochronological context of Aepyornis and human occupation in the coastal dunes of the south coast.

Project Director:

Mike Parker Pearson (U of Sheffield)

Collaborators:

Helen Smith, Jean-Luc Schwenninger, Karen Godden, Ramilisonina Retsihisatse

Funding:

National Geographical Society, British Academy, Society of Antiquaries of London, and Univ of Sheffield

Publications

• Parker Pearson, M, Godden, K, Ramilisonina, Retsihisatse, Schwenninger, J-L, and Smith, H, 1995, The Central Androy Survey, third report. Sheffield and Antananarivo. Universities of Sheffield and Antananarivo. [Limited circulation printed report]
• Parker Pearson, M, Godden, K, Ramilisonina, Retsihisatse, Schwenninger, J-L, and Smith, H, 1995, The early Antandroy kingdom: excavations and survey in Androy 1995. Nyame Akuma, 42
• Parker Pearson, M, Godden, K, Ramilisonina, Retsihisatse, Schwenninger, J-L, Smith, H, and Heurtebize, G, 1997, The Central Androy Survey, fifth report. Sheffield and Antananarivo. Universities of Sheffield and Antananarivo. [Limited circulation printed report]
• Parker Pearson, M, Godden, K, Ramilisonina, Retsihisatse, Schwenninger, J-L, and Smith, H, 1999, Lost Kingdoms: oral histories, travellers' tales and archaeology in southern Madagascar. In P P A Funari, M Hall, and S Jones (eds), Historical archaeology: back from the edge, London. Routledge. 233-254

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