KIDANE Friyat – INEE UMR 5608- TRACES – Univ. Toulouse –

My area of interest is mainly concerned with ‘Use of fuel for metallurgical and domestic activities in medieval and contemporary periods: the case of Konso region, South Ethiopia’. Konso is the perfect region to study the use of fuel in a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach. Traditional iron smelting is a vanishing tradition in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. It is, thus, very important to document such a vanishing tradition before its complete disappearance. The study will also help us understand the culture-history of iron technology in the region and reconstruct the pre-medieval and medieval palaeoenvironment of the region through anthracological, archaeobotanical, and ethnoarchaeological approaches.