ABSTRACT
The canons of archaeological discourse are none the less constantly shaped and reshaped, first by a handful, then by hundreds, and now by thousands of actors. The University of Michigan program in anthropological archaeology has played a crucial role in the consolidation of what anthropological archaeology is today. American and Senegalese students participate in the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (SNAP) which started in 2002. The author has been exploring a number of research themes articulated around the concept of social evolution, and on one select aspect of this: the emergence of complex societies. At a Prehistoric Society conference in 1984 in London, the author met Dr. Thomas Levy, who invited the author to visit him in the Negev where he was starting a project on the Chalcolithic societies of northern Negev. The department chairmanship followed, in parallel with an elected position in the Conseil National des Universits (CNU).
