Ethiopian Highlands and Rift Valley (1971–1978)

Abstract

I attend the Pan-African Prehistory Conference in Addis Ababa , Ethiopia in December 1971, meet the Emperor Haile Selassie , and meet many of the leading figures in African prehistory . Field trips to the Omo delta led by Yves Coppens and to the Afar Rift led by Maurice Taieb introduce me to the wealth of fossil remains in these areas. During 1974–1978 Desmond Clark, his team of archaeologists and I carry out detailed excavations in the Ethiopian Rift Valley and adjacent uplands of a variety of Neolithic and older prehistoric sites, ranging back to the Early Stone Age . We now have a detailed history of lake fluctuations and associated climatic changes in the Ethiopian Rift Valley. Close encounter with a male and female leopard. An incident during excavation of the Porc Epic Cave near Dire Dawa . The Emperor Haile Selassie is deposed and the murderous dictator Haile Mariam Mengistu takes over. Fighting breaks out in the capital and is ruthlessly suppressed. Early in 1978 one of Mengistu’s militia shoots geologist Dr Bill Morton as he was returning to Addis Ababa, and Ethiopian University students lose an outstanding geology teacher. Frances and I had left Ethiopia and returned to Sydney a few days earlier.