Project description
Ethnobotanical perspectives on Nubian agricultural history
Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the GRAINS project will investigate how inhabitants of Northern Sudan transformed their agricultural techniques and plant use during major historical shifts. By focusing on the city of Old Dongola, researchers will reconstruct ancient foodways and medicinal practices using a combination of archaeobotanical samples, archival data, and ethnographic studies. This initiative aims to highlight how local communities maintained resilience by adapting to evolving trade networks and environmental changes across the post-medieval period. The project will create a bilingual digital seed atlas, a vital resource for studying historical botany and archaeobotany in northeastern Africa. The project’s goal is to safeguard Sudanese cultural heritage while establishing a framework for future scientific training and academic recovery in the region.
Objective
GRAINS – Grains, Plant Resources, and Agricultural Innovations in Northern Sudan: Ethnobotanical Perspectives on Post-Medieval Plant Knowledge and Agricultural Transformations examines how communities in Northern Sudan adapted plant use and agricultural practices during major social, political, religious, and environmental transitions. Grounded in original research questions about foodways and agricultural production, the project uses Old Dongola (OD) - the former capital of Christian Makuria and later a key Islamic urban center under the Funj Sultanate - as a core case study to develop a broader analytical framework for Nubian archaeobotany. It draws on over 120 archaeobotanical samples from OD and integrates comparative collections from nine regional sites held at UCL and the British Museum. Combining archaeobotanical analysis, archival research, and ethnographic interviews, the project reconstructs shifts in crop selection, the use of food and medicinal plants, and resilience strategies within African and Islamic trade networks. It provides the first systematic study of post-medieval plant use in Nubia. A key innovation lies in the creation of a bilingual Digital Seed Atlas (DSA) for Sudan and northeastern Africa. Hosted at UCL, the fellowship will provide advanced training in archaeobotany, digital imaging, and open science, supported by collaboration with the British Museum and Kew Gardens. GRAINS will contribute to academic knowledge, support the preservation of cultural heritage, and lay the foundation for future archaeobotany training programs in Sudan, offering long-term benefits to post-conflict academic recovery and sustainable heritage practices.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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WC1E 6BT London
United Kingdom
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