Monthly Archives: January 2014

The BIEA in Collaboration with The National Museums Of Kenya Joint Seminar: Digital Kitambo—Taking the Past into the Future at the National Museum with Dr. David K. Wright and Kristina Dziedzic Wright.

Chair: Dr. Edward Pollard, British Institute in Eastern Africa

Date: Thursday, 30 January 2014
Time: 02.00 pm
Venue: The National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi

Abstract
Lake Turkana has long been recognized as a critical incubator of human cultural evolution. Although much attention has justifiably been placed on researching the nature of our early hominin ancestors, the region also hosts a rich record of fishing and early cattle herding cultures as well. Due to the long and storied traditions of archaeological research near Lake Turkana, a rich collection has been accumulated in the Nairobi National Museum. However, legacy archives need to be digitally curated and integrated into computer databases as the pace of archaeological research in Kenya accelerates. The “Digital Kitambo” project has begun developing an integrated archaeological database using early food producers of northern Kenya to develop the template for future digitization efforts within the museum. The project involves conversion of analogue collections into a relational database, photographing archaeological artifacts and creating 3-dimensional scans of selected artifacts. The Nairobi National Museum hosts one of the deepest records of the human past in the world, but will lead the way into the future in access and usability of collections databases.

Dr. David K. Wright
David K. Wright is Assistant Professor of African Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Art History at Seoul National University in South Korea. Dr. Wright is a geoarchaeologist with specialties in human-environment interactions, sedimentology, evolutionary archaeology and prehistoric African cultures. He has conducted research in eastern Africa and the American Midwest, Plains, and Southwest. He is co-PI on the Malawi Early and Middle Stone Age Project (MEMSAP) studying the behavioral transitions in hominids and early modern humans in northern Malawi. Dr. Wright also conducts research near Lake Turkana, Kenya and in the Mandera Mountains, Cameroon on human adaptations to Holocene environmental change and is the lead PI on a project in the middle Gila River Valley, Arizona called “The Archaeology of Dust.”

Kristina Dziedzic Wright
Kristina Dziedzic Wright teaches art history and writing at Seoul National University in South Korea, and works as a freelance curator. She is the author of Art, Culture, and Tourism on an Indian Ocean Island: An Ethnographic Study of Jua Kali Artists in Lamu, Kenya (2009) and recently co-curated the exhibit Sanaa ya Makaratasi (African Paper Art): Process, Substance and Environment at the Nairobi National Museum. Her academic research ranges from informal sector art and cultural commoditization in Africa to media art and the international biennale phenomenon. Over the last ten years, she has participated in a number of archival and digitization projects for the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and the Elgin Cultural Arts Commission in Illinois, USA

For more information please contact seminars@biea.ac.uk or call +254 20 815 5186