Swiss, Senegalese and French archaeologists launch a research project in Casamance

The journal Reflets about Swiss-African relations announces the publication of an interview with Anne Mayor about the SNSF Sinergia project "Foodways in West Africa: an integrated approach on pots, animals and plants", which has already led to three field missions to Senegal since the beginning of 2020, in collaboration with the Universities of Berne and Nice, Côte d'Azur, as well as several partners including the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar.

Food as a social, economic and cultural marker is currently a topic of great interest, which needs to be addressed with an interdisciplinary perspective. Lower Casamance, where the food system is based on the consumption of rice and fish with palm oil and wine, proved to be very interesting. In collaboration with the Diola inhabitants, it was possible to build up reference collections of culinary pottery, useful plants and actual fish, useful for the interpretation of the remains of the archaeological excavation of "la poubelle des Mamans", an abandoned dump, giving an understanding of the evolution of practices since the beginning of the colonial period.