Alem Beldados

Institution: University of North Carolina, Wilmington

Alemseged (Alem) Beldados (Ph.D.) is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW), USA. He held a Research Associate position in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University in 2023-24 academic year. He has held faculty position in the Department of Archaeology & Heritage Management at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Alem is an archaeobotanist specializing in plant macro and microfossil study to understand ancient farming, food systems, and palaeoclimate. He has published a monograph entitled Paleoethnobotanical Study of Ancient Food Crops and the Environmental Context in Northeast Africa, 6000 B.C. to 200/300 AD, Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology, BAR International Series, 2706. He has published several research results from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Nigeria and is currently PI of a project in Southern Ethiopia focusing on past environment and human adaptation strategies. Alem is involved in anthracological research (the study of charred plant remains) from the site of Bara (400 BC-AD 1840) in Nigeria at the Material History Lab. The goal is to understand the long-term environmental history and cultural dynamics of plant use in southwest Nigeria.