Images and text modified from: Cambridge Chronicles (2025) The Department of Archaeology and the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research are delighted to announce that Professor Gilly Carr, REAL project alumnus Dr Nik Petek-Sargeant and Stanley Jachike Onyemechalu were recognised at the recent Cambridge Awards for Research Impact and Engagement. See the original port on the University of Cambridge Department of […]
Ethnogenesis and Surplus Food Production
New Article by Nik Petek and Paul Lane REAL researchers Nik Petek and Paul Lane have recently published an article on the ethnogenesis of the Ilchamus and the food production capacity of the irrigation system in Baringo. Have a look: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2Xs9p5pQFKSrMS5Y3tEu/full
REAL at the ASAUK conference 2016
REAL had a stream of three panels on the temporal, spatial and social dynamics of human-landscape interactions in East Africa at the African Studies Association of the UK 2016 conference at University of Cambridge in September 2016. The panels were themed ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’, providing different temporal frames for the REAL ESRs to present […]
Baringo Fieldwork Pt. 3 – The final step
Four months in the hot Baringo sun was not enough for the archaeological team of Baringo, so we returned for a third and final time. This time we wanted to blow everyone away with our discoveries and, by the end of the fieldwork in July, we surprised even ourselves. The fieldwork had everything: beautiful and […]
Excavations in Baringo, Fieldwork Pt. 2
From January to March, the extraordinary team exploring the archaeology around Lake Baringo set out on another adventure. Rather than endlessly walking through the landscape, discovering scatters of worked stone and shapely pottery, we returned to three sites we recorded during our previous fieldwork. The sites were subject to small excavations that uncovered a great […]
REAL attends ‘African Heritage Challenges: Development and Sustainability’
Paul Lane and Nik Petek attended the workshop ‘African Heritage Challenges: Development and Sustainability.’ It was hosted at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) in Cambridge from the 15th to the 16th of May. Paul Lane, who was invited as a plenary speaker, talked on the topic of ‘African […]
Archaeological fieldwork in Baringo Pt. 1
The REAL archaeological expedition to Lake Baringo began this autumn. From September to November 2014 a team of experienced researchers criss-crossed the southern Baringo lowlands looking for signs of past human occupation. In their quest for knowledge they traversed kilometres under the hot African sun, battling spitting cobras, gruesome thorn shrubs, and the ferocious (but […]
Fieldwork at Lakes Baringo and Bogoria, July 2014
The REAL ESRs from Ghent University carried out field work in Lakes Baringo and Bogoria in the Kenyan rift valley in July. Together with Prof. Dirk Verschuren, ESRs Geert van der Plas and Aynalem Degefa and other members of the Limnology Unit at Ghent University (Gijs de Cort and Yoeri Torsi), were involved in the […]
First visit to Lake Baringo region
The Lake Baringo Basin is a place the vast majority of people have not heard of, and neither would I if it were not for the Tugen Hills, just west of the lake, famous for their hominin remains. If I had to describe it in a few words, I would say it is an area […]
Photos from the Baringo conference at the University of Köln
Over January 8-10, 2014, the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne hosted a conference and brought together many members of the REAL team and other researchers working in East Africa. The focus was social-ecological transitions, exchange and emergence: resilience and vulnerability in the wider Baringo basin and adjoining highlands. […]
Photos from the Baringo conference at the University of Köln
Over January 8-10, 2014, the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne hosted a conference and brought together many members of the REAL team and other researchers working in East Africa. The focus was social-ecological transitions, exchange and emergence: resilience and vulnerability in the wider Baringo basin and adjoining highlands. […]
Geert van der Plas
Position: Early-stage researcher Address: Limnology Unit, Department of Biology, Ghent University K.L. Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000 Gent, Belgium Email: geert.vanderplas@ugent.be Website: UGent webpage LinkedIn profile Supervisor: Dirk Verschuren Bio: Hi, my name is Geert. I am attached to REAL as an ESR, based at Ghent University. I will be reconstructing past landscape and environmental changes in […]