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Outreach and Community Engagement

I am committed to broadening engagement with archaeology in East Africa, the United States, and globally. African communities remain sidelined by traditional archaeological practice. Regular community meetings in the field allow our team to carry out ethical archaeological research that incorporates local perspectives and meets community needs. Our field team has developed several long-standing relationships with community members around different sites in Zanzibar. My collaborators and I have also developed Swahili-language archaeology vocabulary to communicate effectively during local community meetings, and we translate and disseminate reports of our findings in Swahili.

In the US, I am committed to dispelling outdated notions about Africa. During my graduate studies, I partnered with the ORIAS Speaker’s Bureau at the University of California, Berkeley to give public talks about African archaeology at local Bay Area middle schools and high schools.

Community Engagement and Public Talks

2023 GIS and GNSS for Archaeology and Heritage Management. Talk and workshop provided for the Department of Museums and Antiquities in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

2022 Public talk at the Kokoci Arkansas Archaeological Survey: “The Archaeology of Social Transformation in Zanzibar, Tanzania”.

2019-2020 Swahili Translation Project, with Jackson Kimambo

2017-2018 ORIAS Speaker Bureau, “The Archaeology of the Swahili Coast: East Africa and the Indian Ocean”. Center for African Studies, UC Berkeley. Speaker for 5th-12th grades; multiple talks across different schools.

2016 GIS technician, SaveNubia Project, Contra Costa College

2016 Madera Elementary School Archaeological Outreach Day visit, Oakland CA

2015 Madera Elementary School Archaeological Outreach Day visit, Oakland CA

2015 “Archaeology, Anthropology, Race and Colonialism in Africa”, a talk presented to upper-level high school students in the African-American History class at Bishop O’Dowd High School, Oakland, CA

2014 Tshimbupfe, South Africa community engagement. PI: Jun Sunseri.

2014 Museum Chat, “Roman Coins from the Franklin Wright Collection”. With Elisabeth Campbell and Sheri Leonard. Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum. Johns Hopkins University

Online Presentations and Blogs

2022 Moderator for the panel “Abdulrazak Gurna’s Nobel Prize in Literature: Implications in the African Language Classroom”. Department of African and African American Studies, UC Berkeley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3C0rx72X8Y

2020 Presenter, “Long-Term Inland Settlement and Agricultural Change in Zanzibar, Tanzania”. Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvpBzCwJfGM

2015-2016 - Swahili Archaeology and Poetry Blog: https://swahiliarchaeologypoetry.wordpress.com/

Wolfgang Alders, 2024

Publications

Published in , 1900

Journal Articles

In Press Alders W., Musa, H. M.; Vuai, A.; Ali, A.; Juma, K. O.; Ubwa, A. H.; Manzi, Z. M.; Muhammed, H.; Suleiman, H. Raiding, refuge, and mobility on the eastern African Swahili Coast. Current Anthropology.

In Press Haji, F.; Haji, K. S.; Ally, A.; Alders, W.; Othman, B.; Mussa, M.; Kasala, A.; Hamad, H. F.; Khamis, A. A. Archaeological investigations at Pungume, a small island off the coast of southern Unguja in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Nyame Akuma.

2024 Alders, W. Rural settlement dynamics in a rapidly urbanizing landscape: insights from satellite remote sensing and archaeological field surveys in Zanzibar, Tanzania. The Journal of Field Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2024.2402962

2024 Alders, W., Davis, D.; Haines, J. Archaeology in the fourth dimension: studying landscapes with multitemporal PlanetScope satellite data. The Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09644-x

2024 Alders W. Clientage, debt, and the integrative orientation of non-elites on the East African Swahili coast. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101553

2023 Alders W. Open-access archaeological predictive modeling using zonal statistics: a case study from Zanzibar, Tanzania. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology 6(1): 117-142. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.107

2023 Alders W. The archaeology of social transformation in rural Zanzibar, Tanzania, eleventh to nineteenth centuries CE. 40(4): 741-760. African Archaeological Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-023-09523-y

2020 Alders W. Preliminary results of a 2019 survey in inland Zanzibar, Tanzania. Nyame Akuma 94: 38-45.

2016 Alders W. Archaeological survey and landscape history at Gede, Kenya. Nyame Akuma 85: 33-43.

MANUSCRIPTS IN PROGRESS

(in prep) Dumitru, I.A., Kristiansen, S.M., Lupien R., Olsen, J., Alders, W., Romanowska, I., Sindbæk, S.M., Raja, R. Global climate event coincides with extreme drought and migrations in 6th – 7th centuries CE eastern Africa. (in prep for Science).

(in prep) Alders, W.; Lim, J.; Brunner, L. Testing associations between Baobab tree distributions and ancient settlements on offshore islands in eastern Africa. (in prep for Journal of Archaeological Science).

(in prep) Alders, W. An ecological model for eastern African coastal urbanism. (in prep for World Archaeology).

Dissertation

Alders, W. (2022). Uneven Ground: The Archaeology of Social Transformation in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Berkeley: Department of Anthropology Dissertation, UC Berkeley. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3n46k1w9

Wolfgang Alders, 2024

Presentations

Conference Presentations

2024 Alders, W. “Modeling Socioecological Transformation in Coastal East Africa: A Case Study from Unguja Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania.” Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting. In the session “Islands Around Africa: State of the Art and Future Directions.” Chair: Krish Seetah.

2024 Dumitru, I.; Alders, W. “Dynamic Coasts and Landscapes of Resilience: Archaeological and Environmental Hotspot Modeling on the Swahili Coast (Sixth–Nineteenth Century CE).” Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting. In the session “Environmental Archaeology in Africa.” Chair: Asia Alsgaard.

2023 Alders, W. “Heterarchy, Anti-Colonial Infrastructures, and the Busaid State in 19th Century Zanzibar”. Society of Africanist Archaeologists Biennial Meeting. In 25 Years Beyond Chiefdoms: Susan McIntosh’s Pathways to Complexity Influence on African Archaeology. Co-Chairs: Carla Klehm and Wolfgang Alders.

2023 Alders, W., Haines, J. “Landscapes of Stone in Mauritius and Zanzibar.” Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting. In the session “Adventures in Spatial Archaeometry: A Survey of Recent High-Resolution Survey and Measurement Application”. Chairs: Sarah Watson and Elizabeth Clay.

2021 Alders, W. “Long-Term Settlement in Plantation Regions of Unguja, Zanzibar.” Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting. In the session, “Uses of Survey in Worldwide Contemporary Archaeology”. Session organizer: Wolfgang Alders, University of California, Berkeley.

2021 Alders, W. “Settlement and Environment on Zanzibar in the Context of the Western Indian Ocean”. Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting. Discussant in the lightning round panel “An Ocean of connections: tangible and intangible exchanges in the IOW”. Organizers: Stefania Manfio and Alessandra Cianciosi.

2017 Alders, W., Khamis Ali, A. “Preliminary Results of Geoarchaeological Sampling and Survey to Investigate Landscape History in Northern Unguja, Zanzibar.” Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting. In the panel, “Advances in Geoarchaeological Research Methods”. Session organizer: Michael Wilson, Simon Fraser University.

Other Presentations

2024 Early Globalization and Ancient Connectivity on the Eastern African Swahili Coast: A View from Pangani Bay in Northern Tanzania. Invited talk, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University.

2024 “Zanzibar resembles a city with a hostile army encamped in its neighborhood”: Coastal Raiding and the Archaeology of Refuge on the Swahili Coast”. Invited talk, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Advanced Seminar, Archaeologies of Forced Migration: Approaches, Case Studies and Prospects. Organized by Li Min and Aaron Burke, UCLA

2023 Integration and Autonomy in the Island Hinterland of Zanzibar Stone Town, 8th-19th centuries CE. The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA

2022 Exploring Swahili Urban Transformations. Anthropology Brown Bag, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

2022 Uneven Ground: The Archaeology of Settlement Reorganization in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley

2020 Land Use, Labor, and Long-Term History in Rural Zanzibar, Tanzania. African Archaeology Research Day. University of Leicester

2020 Long-Term Inland Settlement and Agricultural Change in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley

2016 Cultivating Cosmopolitanism: Long-Term Archaeological Histories, Agriculture and Poetry in Zanzibar. In Symposium on Early Modern Identities. UC Berkeley

2016 Becoming Zanzibar: Comparative Archaeological and Ecological Histories of Unguja and Pemba. Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley

Wolfgang Alders, 2024

Teaching and Mentorship

, , 1900

Teaching Philosophy

Broadening access to archaeology and higher education for students from diverse walks of life is imperative. In my teaching, I draw on universal design for learning (UDL) approaches to make class lectures and assignments accessible to students with different backgrounds and learning styles. I also emphasize writing, peer-editing, and re-writing in a supportive environment as a critical method for helping students become independent thinkers and scholars. Finally, I am committed to mentoring and advancing the capacities of African students and researchers, who are underserved compared to their colleagues in the US and Europe.

Sample Courses

Cities, Past and Present

Agriculture and Society

GIS and Remote Sensing in Archaeology

African Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

East Africa in the Indian Ocean

The Archaeology of Slavery in Africa

Teaching and Mentoring Experience

Instructor of Record

Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
Undergraduate Course: R5B Freshman Writing Seminar, “Politics of African Archaeology and Heritage” (Spring 2022)

Teaching Assistant

Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley.
Undergraduate Course: ESPM 72 – Intro to Geographic Information Systems (Summer 2021)

Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
Undergraduate Courses: Anth 2AC: Intro to Archaeology (Fall 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2020)

Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
Undergraduate Courses: MES 15: Intro to Middle Eastern Art and Archaeology (Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018).

Mentorship and Undergraduate Training

Trained students from the US and from the State University of Zanzibar in archaeological field methods, remote sensing, and ceramic analysis (Summer 2019, Summer 2023).

Supervised undergraduates in managing field data. PI: Lisa Maher (Fall 2020)

Supervised undergraduates in soil analysis of sediments from Zanzibar, Tanzania. PI: Lisa Maher (Spring 2018).

Supervised undergraduates doing structure-from-motion photogrammetry of Iron Age ceramics from Jordan. PI: Ben Porter (Fall 2016, Fall 2017).

Supervised undergraduates in a collaborative research project with the Musanda Royal Council of Tsimbupfe, South Africa. PI: Jun Sunseri (Spring 2015).

Wolfgang Alders, 2024