Randi Håland Professor, Department of Archeology, University of Bergen

Video

The Ethiopian Iron Smelter and his World - available on DVD and VHS for online ordering.

The Ethiopian Iron smelter and his World" has been displayed at:
Archaeological Filmfestival Nyon, Switzerland, March 2005
Filmforum, Bergen, January 2006
Smithsonian Institute, Washington, March 2006
Nordic Filfestival, Bergen June 2006

Teaching and Research

I am a professor of African and Middle Eastern Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology University / Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bergen.

I started to teach African Archaeology for two years at the newly established Archaeology Department in Khartoum in 1972. Since then I have continued research in Africa. I took on the training of two doctorate students from Sudan who completed their doctorate in Archaeology and paleo-osteology at University of Bergen in 1982 (Ali Tigani el Mahi) and one student who combined archaeology with paleo-botany and completed his doctorate here in Bergen in 1988 (Anwar Abdul Magid Osman). I started an M.Phil. Course mainly for African students in 1993. Since then we have had students completing their thesis coming from: Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Palestine, and also from Nepal. For the moment I supervise 5 master students from Africa, four of these are supported by NORAD grants. Of these two are from Ethiopia, one from Kenya, one from Sudan and one from Zimbabwe. At present I supervise one Norwegian doctorate student working in Africa; Per Ditlev Fredriksen, in cooperation with Simon Hall at University of Cate Town (Transformation of Clay, Moloko pottery in its social and ritual context.) I also supervise Nils Anfinset, working in Jericho (see excavation website), Palestine (Processes of Cultural Change in the Southern Levant during the Chalcolithic).

Supervising Henriette Hafsaas for her doctorate dissertation on the Project "The Fruits of Civilization". Have just completed supervising the last of 20 African students for their master thesis (for the 1996-2006 period).

I have been directing archaeological research projects in:
1) -Sudan 1978-90 (on the transition from sedentism to food production along the Nile, with special focus on the problem of the late domestication of Sorghum)
2)- Tanzania 1988-93 (Iron Age in East Africa, iron-pottery production and trade)
3)-Nepal 1993-98 (Late Palaeolithic settlements in Dang Valley)
4)- Palestine 1998-- (Lower Jordan Basin Project). An interdisciplinary project also involving Anthropology, Geography History.
5) -Zimbabwe. A new project, which started in January 2002 on the Ancestral Landscape of Manyikaland.
These 5 projects have mainly been financed by NUFU and the Norwegian Development Agency (NORAD) an important aspect of the projects has been local competence building.
Research interest has been on
A) Transition to agriculture in the Nile Valley of the Sudan.
B) Iron Age in East Africa
C) Ethno-archaeology of Iron working, fieldwork: Sudan 1972, 78 Tanzania 1991 and Ethiopia 2000, also recently in Nepal in connection with supervision of an M.Phil thesis. My main research focus now is on Iron working seen in a cross-cultural cultural perspective. Ancient European Iron working is here on my research agenda.

Research 2005-2008
Participating in an interdisciplinary research project financed by the Norwegian Research Council "Global Moments" The research is looking at the Levant as a key region for understanding cultural changes such as the transition to food production and the development of new food systems The Levant is seen as an intercontinental contact zone between Africa-Europe and Asia, the differet foodways of these regions are investigated in a cross-cultural perspective and in a long duree from the Neolithic to the present.