User:ValentineGiraldes/Eric Huysecom

Eric Huysecom
Eric Huysecom at the University of Geneva.
Born	13th of november 1956 Ixelles/Belgique
Citizenship	Belgian and Swiss
Occupation(s)	Archaeologist, prehistorian, ethnoarchaeologist, numismatist and art historian
Employer	University of Geneva

Eric Huysecom, born November 13, 1956 in Ixelles / Belgium, is an archaeologist, prehistorian, ethnoarchaeologist, numismatist and art historian. He is Swiss and Belgian, currently professor at the University of Geneva, and head of the Laboratoire Archéologie et Peuplement de l'Afrique (APA).

Biography

Origins and formation

After starting his studies in veterinary medicine at the University of Liège in 1974-75, Eric Huysecom obtained a degree in Art History and Archaeology at the Free University of Brussels in 1979, specializing in Prehistory with Professor Pierre-Paul Bonenfant. At the same time, he studied numismatics at the Cabinet des Médailles in Brussels with Marcel Thirion and Jacqueline Lallemand. He received a scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst from 1979 to 1981, and then from the German Archaeological Institute between 1981 and 1985. In 1985, he defended his doctoral thesis in African archaeology at the Institute of Pre- and Protohistory of the University of Frankfurt under the direction of professors Hermann Müller-Karpe and Albrecht Jockenhövel.

Teaching and academic functions

After having been responsible for the program at the Frobenius Institute from 1985 to 1988, he was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Geneva in 1988, and became a professor in 2008. Since 1988 he has taught several courses in African archaeology. After having co-directed with Professor Alain Gallay the "Swiss Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Mission to West Africa", he created in 1997 the Laboratoire Archéologie et Peuplement de l'Afrique which he still directs today. At the University of Geneva, he has been a member of the Participatory Council of the Faculty of Sciences since 2009, which he has chaired since 2018, Special Advisor to the Rectorate for Africa since 2013, and member or president of numerous national or international university commissions. He was elected to the board of the Pan African Archaeological Association, a position he held from 2005 to 2018, and President of the Society of Africanist Archaeologist, a position he held from 2016 to 2018.

Scientific activities and archaeological excavations

After excavations carried out as early as 1972 in Belgium, France and Germany on prehistoric, Roman or Merovingian sites, Eric Huysecom began to specialize in 1976 on megalithic burials in Belgium, in particular excavating the covered alley of Wéris on which he published a monograph. in 1981. In 1982 he published, a century after the work of Baron Alfred de Loë, the first synthesis on megalithic burials in Belgium. He then extended his research on the demonstration of cultural relations between the German and Franco-Belgian Final Neolithic, thus highlighting in 1986 the existence of east-west relations from Ukraine to Brittany.

At the same time, he led and published numerous researches in Roman and Celtic numismatics between 1973 and 1987. These led to the proposal of a new approach to Celtic coins found in excavation thanks to the concept of "circulation spectrum".

Charged in 1985 by the Frobenius Institute and the German Archaeological Institute with the implementation of an archaeological research program in Mali, in the Boucle du Baoulé National Park, its excavations in the rock shelter of Fanfannyégéné and surroundings have allowed not only to discover an original Neolithic culture, the "Neolithic facies of Baoulé", but also, for the first time, to highlight over a long distance, from the Malian Sahara to the coast of Cape Verde , a way of withdrawal of populations and / or cultural exchanges following the aridification of the Sahara which settled in 2800 BCE.

In 1988, with Alain Gallay, he became co-director of the Swiss Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Mission in West Africa, which studies the current ceramic traditions of the Inner Niger Delta. This work has enabled the cultural, functional and technical interpretation of the archaeological remains discovered on the excavations he directed between 1988 and 1990 in Hamdallahi, the capital of the Fulani empire of Massina. He also uses the ethnoarchaeological approach within the framework of a study on iron metallurgy among the Dogon, which notably gave rise to the production of the documentary film Inagina, the ultimate house of iron. This approach also allows him to define a concept of "African Neolithic", better adapted to this continent.

In 1991, he also began his research on Flemish genre painters and landscape painters of the 17th century, specializing in particular on certain artists such as the traveling painter Gillis Peeters I.

The International Human Population and Paleoenvironment in Africa Program

Following the discovery of the Ounjougou deposit (Dogon Country, Mali) which includes hundreds of stratified archaeological sites spread over an area of ​​more than 10 km2, delivering archaeological material from the ancient Paleolithic to the present time, associated with micro - and plant macro-remains in an exceptional state of conservation for Sub-Saharan Africa, Eric Huysecom set up in 1997 the international and interdisciplinary research program "Human population and paleoenvironment in Africa". This interdisciplinary program, financed in large part by the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research, the Swiss-Liechtenstein Foundation for Archaeological Research Abroad and which brings together around thirty researchers belonging to 11 European and African academic institutions, has for main objective the study of interactions between human populations and climatic and environmental variations. Since 2012, this program has also focused on other regions important for understanding the population of Africa, such as the Falémé valley in eastern Senegal and the coastal region in Côte d'Ivoire.

It is within the framework of this program that he unearths in Ounjougou, in a well-defined geological and archaeobotanical context, ceramics dating from the 10th millennium BC, which constitute the oldest remains of this type known to date. in Africa, almost contemporary with those of Japan, China and Siberia.

Grants and distinctions

Eric Huysecom was awarded several times, between 1981 and 1985, doctoral grants through competitive examination from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and, in 1985, a postdoctoral grant from the German Scientific Research Fund (DFG). In 1997, he won the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2nd International Archaeological Film Festival in Brussels, for the directing and scientific direction of the film Inagina, the ultimate house of iron. In 1998, he received the Award of commendation from the Society for Visual Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association for the same film. In 2008, he was appointed by the German Archaeological Institute as corresponding member for Switzerland, and ordinary member of the Institute in 2013. In 2016 he was elected president of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists.

Publications

Monographies

• Kiénon-Kaboré H, Loukou S. & Huysecom, E. Un siècle de recherches archéologiques en Côte d’Ivoire : bilan et perspectives. Abidjan : Editions Universitaires de Côte d’Ivoire (EDUCI), Collection : Histoire. 2018.
• Mayor A., Negri V. & Huysecom E., (éds). African Memory in Danger - Mémoire africaine en péril. Journal of African Archaeology Monograph series, vol. 11. Francfort : Africa Magna Verlag. 2015.
• Gallay A., Huysecom E., Mayor A. & Gelbert A. Potières du Sahel. À la découverte des traditions céramiques de la Boucle du Niger (Mali), Golion : Infolio. 2012.
• Huysecom E. Fanfannyégèné I. Un abri sous-roche à occupation néolithique au Mali - La fouille, le matériel archéologique, l'art rupestre - , Sonderschriften des Frobenius Instituts 8, Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag. 1990.
• Huysecom E. Die archäologische Forschung in Westafrika, Materialen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Archäologie 33/1-2, Münich: Beck Verlag, 2 volumes, 851 pp., 123 figg., 15 cartes. 1987.
• Huysecom E. Les allées couvertes de Wéris, Publications de l'Institut Archéologique du Luxembourg 57, Arlon: éd. G. Everling. 1981.
• Huysecom E. Les antoniniens des légions de Gallien, Bruxelles : éd. Amphora. 1975.

Articles

• Fiorillo F., Hendricks L., Hajdas I., Vandini M. & Huysecom E., 2021, The rediscovery of Jan Ruyscher and its consequence, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 60.
• Chevrier B, Lespez L, Lebrun B, Garnier A, Tribolo C, Rasse M., Guérin G., Mercier N., Camara A., Ndiaye M. & Huysecom E., 2020. New data on settlement and environment at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary in Sudano-Sahelian West Africa: Interdisciplinary investigation at Fatandi V, Eastern Senegal, PLOS ONE 15/12 : p. e0243129.
• Truffa Giachet M., Gratuze B., Mayor A. & Huysecom E., 2020. Compositional and provenance study of glass beads from archaeological sites in Mali and Senegal at the time of the first Sahelian states, PLOS ONE 15/12 : p. e0242027.
• Huysecom E., 2020. The First Emergence of Ceramic Production in Africa. In : Chirikure Sh. (ed), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology, New York : Oxford University Press, p. 1-14
• Truffa Giachet M., Gratuze B., Ozainne S., Mayor A. & Huysecom E., 2019. A Phoenician glass eye bead from 7th-5th c. cal BCE Nin-Bèrè 3, Mali : Compositional characterisation by LA–ICP–MS, Journal of Archaeological Science : Reports 24, p. 748-758.
• Chevrier B., Huysecom E., Soriano S., Rasse M., Lespez L., Lebrun B. & Tribolo C., 2018. Between continuity and discontinuity : An overview of the West African Palaeolithic over the last 200'000 years, Quaternary International 466 : p. 3-22.
• Huysecom E., Hajdas I., Renold M.-A., Synal H.-A. & Mayor A., 2017. The « enhancement » of cultural heritage by AMS dating : Ethical questions and practicals proposals, Radiocarbon 59/2, p. 559-563.
• Mayor A. & Huysecom E., 2016. Cultural Pathways to Development among Communities : The cultural Banks in Mali. In : Schmidt, P. R. & Pikirayi I. eds. Community Archaeology and Heritage in Africa : Decolonising Practice. New York, London : Routledge, p. 153-180.
• Chevrier B., Rasse M., Lespez L., Tribolo C., Hajdas I., Guardiola Fígols M., Lebrun B., Leplongeon A., Camara A. & Huysecom E., 2016. West African Palaeolithic history: New archaeological and chronostratigraphic data from the Falémé valley, eastern Senegal, Quaternary International 408 (B), p. 33-52.
• Huysecom E. 2015. Éthique et archéologie africaine : quelques pistes de réflexion. In : A. Mayor, V. Negri & E. Huysecom (éds). African Memory in Danger – Mémoire africaine en péril. Journal of African Archaeology Monograph series, vol. 11.  Francfort : Africa Magna Verlag : 61-67.
• Huysecom E., Ozainne S., Jeanbourquin C., Mayor A., Canetti M., Loukou S., Chaix L., Eichhorn B., Lespez L., Le Drezen Y., Guindo N., 2015. Towards a better Understanding of Sub-Saharan Settlement Mounds before 1400 AD: the tells of Sadia on the Seno Plain (Dogon Country, Mali). Journal of African Archaeology 13/1: 7 - 38.
• Huysecom E., 2014. Archaeology of the Ounjougou Site Complex. In : Smith C. (ed), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology vol. 11, New-York: Springer : 5664 - 5670.
• Mayor A., Huysecom E., Ozainne S. & Magnavita S., 2014. Early social complexity in the Dogon Country (Mali) as evidenced by a new chronology of funerary practices, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 34: 17 - 41.
• Soriano S. & Huysecom E., 2012. Lithic industry as an Indicator of Ceramic Diffusion in the Early Neolithic of West Africa: a Case Study at Ounjougou (Mali), Journal of African Archaeology 10/1 : 85-101.
• Lespez L., Le Drezen Y., Garnier A., Rasse M., Eichhorn B., Ozainne S. Ballouche A., Neumann K. & Huysecom E., 2011. High-resolution fluvial records of Holocene environmental changes in the Sahel : the Yamé River at Ounjougou (Mali, West Africa), Quaternary Science Reviews 30/5-6 : 737-756.
• Huysecom E., Rasse M., Lespez L., Neumann K., Fahmy A., Ballouche A., Ozainne S., Maggetti M., Tribolo C. & Soriano S., 2009. The emergence of pottery in Africa during the 10th millenium calBC: new evidence from Ounjougou (Mali), Antiquity 83 : 905-917.
• Mayor A., Huysecom E., Gallay A. Rasse M & Ballouche A. 2005. Populations dynamics and paleoclimate over the last 3000 years in the Dogon Country (Mali), Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24 : 25 – 61.
• Huysecom E., Ozainne S., Raeli F., Ballouche A., Rasse M. & Stokes S. 2004. Ounjougou (Mali): A history of Holocene settlement at the southern edge of the Sahara, Antiquity 78, n°301 : 602 – 616.
• Robert A., Soriano S., Rasse M., Stokes S. & Huysecom E. 2003. First chrono-cultural reference framework for the West African Palaeolithic : new data from Ounjougou (Dogon Country, Mali), Journal of African Archaeology 1/2 : 151 –169.
• Huysecom E. 2001. Technique et croyance des forgerons africains, éléments pour une approche ethnoarchéologique, in: Descoeudres J.-P., Huysecom E., Serneels V. & Zimmermann J.-L. (eds), The Origins of Iron Metallurgy. Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on: The Archaeology of Africa and the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean archaeology 14 : 73 - 82.
• Huysecom E. 2001 The beginning of Iron metallurgy: from sporadic inventions to irreversible generalizations , in: Descoeudres J.-P., Huysecom E., Serneels V. & Zimmermann J.-L. (eds), The Origins of Iron Metallurgy. Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on: The Archaeology of Africa and the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean archaeology 14 : 1 - 5.
• Huysecom E. 1996. Le concept de "Néolithique" en Afrique noire vu au travers d'observations ethnoarchéologiques, in : Aumassip G., Desmond Clark J. & Mori F. (eds), The prehistory of Africa, XIIIth International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP), Forlì 8 - 14 septembre 1996, Colloquia XV, Forlì: ABACO edizioni : 257-262.
• Huysecom E. 1996. Iron Age terracotta pestles in the Sahel area : an ethnoarchaeological approach, in: Krzyzaniak L., Kroeper K., Kobusiewicz M. (eds), Interregional Contacts in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa, Studies in African Archaeology 5, Poznan: Poznan Archaeological Museum, 419 - 458.
• Huysecom E., Mayor A, Marchi S. & Conscience A.-C. 1996. Styles et chronologie dans l'art rupestre de la Boucle du baoulé (Mali): l'abri de Fanfannyégèné II, Sahara 8 : 53 - 60, pl. A - C.
• Huysecom E. 1994. Identification technique des céramiques africaines, in: Terre cuite et société. La céramique, document technique, économique, culturel. Actes des XIVe rencontres internationales d'Archéologie et d'Histoire d'Antibes, 21-23 octobre 1993, Juan-les-Pins: éd. du CNRS, 31 - 44.
• Huysecom E. 1993. Le "faciès néolithique du Baoulé" au Mali, in: Pavúk J. (ed), Proceedings of the XIIth International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP), Bratislava 1-7 septembre 1991, vol. 2, Bratislava: Institut archéologique de l’Académie Slovaque des Sciences, 486 - 490.
• Huysecom E. 1993. Ethnoarchäologie - Methodologie und Perspektiven, Ethnographisch - Archäologische Zeitschrift 34 : 241 - 250.
• Huysecom E. 1992. Vers une ethnoarchéologie appliquée : exemples africains, in : Ethnoarchéologie : justification, problèmes, limites, Actes des XIIe rencontres internationales d'Archéologie et d'Histoire d'Antibes, 17-19 octobre 1991, Juan-les-Pins: éd. du CNRS, 91 - 102.
• Huysecom E. 1986. La question des bouteilles à collerette. Identification et chronologie d'un groupe méridional répandu de l'Ukraine à la Bretagne, in: Chancerel A., Jéhanne B. & Verron G. (eds), Actes du Xe colloque interrégional sur le néolithique, Université de Caen 30.9 – 2.10.1983, Revue Archéologique de l'Ouest supplément 1: 195 - 215.
• Huysecom E. 1985. Über den keltischen Geldumlauf im Departement Oise (Frankreich). Zu Untersuchungsmethode und Interpretationsmöglichkeiten der Münzfunde, Studien zu Fundmünzen der Antike 3 : 1 - 12.
• Huysecom E. 1982. Les sépultures mégalithiques en Belgique. Inventaire et essai de synthèse, Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge d'Anthropologie et de Préhistoire 93 : 63 - 85.
• Huysecom E. 1982. Contribution à l'étude des monnaies celtiques, II, à propos des récentes découvertes monétaires de Champlieu (Oise, 1981) et des phases de circulation en Gaule Belgique sous César et Auguste, Revue Belge de Numismatique 128 : 27 - 38, pl. I.
• Huysecom E. 1979. À propos d'une variante inédite du denier de consécration d'Hadrien et de la datation de cette monnaie, Bulletin du Cercle d'Études Numismatiques 16 : 45 - 50.
• Huysecom E. 1977. Un denier inédit de Trajan (98-99), Bulletin du Cercle d'Études Numismatiques 14 : 10-11.

Liens externes

[[Category:Belgian art historians]] [[Category:Belgian archaeologists]]