Since the 1970s, the Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA) holds a biennial conference dedicated to African archaeology and related research topics. The meetings alternate between Europe and North America and represent, together with the meetings of the Pan-African Archaeological Association (PAA) in Africa, the best opportunity for the Africanist archaeological community to meet and discuss the latest research developments.

In the summer of 2016, the 23rd Biennial SAfA meeting was held at the Université Jean Jaurés of Toulouse (France) between the 26th of June and the 2nd of July. On this occasion, more than 600 delegates came together to present the newest outcome of many research projects currently ongoing from one end of the continent to the other. Scientific communications were organized in 41 sessions. In the evenings, the football matches of the European Championship provided a pleasant input to strengthen relationships between students and researchers from all countries.

Several members of the CRC 806 attended the congress. For Project C2, Alessandro Potì took part at session 27 about “Human-Environment interaction in the late Pleistocene of Africa”. He presented new data on the Iberomaurusian lithic production starting from the test case of the site Ifri El Baroud (Morocco).

Presenting Ifri El Baroud. Photo: Jörg Linstädter