Dr Kingsley Chinedu Daraojimba

Experience & Activities

His work foregrounds the environment and material culture in the archaeological past of southeastern Nigeria, combining archaeological fieldwork with collections-based research and scientific analyses to illuminate cultural history, artistic traditions, and the ecological contexts of past societies. His scholarly interests span the breadth of environmental archaeology, with a strong concentration on archaeopalynology, the study of pollen and other microfossils from archaeological contexts to reconstruct past environments, climates, vegetation histories, and patterns of human plant use. Through palynological analysis, Dr Daraojimba examines the natural and cultural processes that have shaped landscape transformation and evolution. Complementing this approach, he engages material culture to explore social life, technology, symbolism, and environmental relationships in early Igbo societies of southeastern Nigeria.

Dr Daraojimba is currently a Newton International Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, and a College Research Associate at Homerton College, University of Cambridge. He has recently completed a highly prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship position at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge. Kingsley holds a permanent academic appointment at the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he has taught archaeology and environmentally related courses since 2017. His academic training was completed at the University of Ibadan, where he obtained a BSc in Archaeology (2007), an MSc in Environmental Archaeology (2010), and a PhD in Archaeology (2017). Between 2013 and 2016, he served as a Postgraduate School Teaching and Research Assistant at the University of Ibadan.

Dr Daraojimba’s current research in southeast Nigeria is targeted at producing the first locally generated environmental records from one of West Africa’s most significant archaeological landscapes, Igbo-Ukwu. His work examines social settlement dynamics and environmental processes within the c. 9th–13th century CE Igbo-Ukwu cultural landscape, with the aim of understanding how deep historical human–environment interactions contributed to the emergence and development of early urban landscapes in West Africa. He is the Principal Investigator of the Igbo-Ukwu Archaeology Project, which integrates environmental reconstruction, spatial and temporal analyses of settlement and industrial activities, and a wide range of material science approaches. These include analyses of ceramics, plant remains, soils, and sediments, undertaken in collaboration with scholars at the University of Cambridge and other international institutions.
Deeply committed to community archaeology and public engagement, Dr Daraojimba actively incorporates participatory and community-centred approaches into his fieldwork, ensuring that archaeological research is socially grounded and locally meaningful. His research outputs have contributed significantly to debates on archaeological site formation, human–environment interactions, and archaeology education in Nigeria. His 2022 co-authored publication in African Archaeological Review presents new data from fieldwork at Igbo-Ukwu, substantially expanding current understanding of the site’s temporal depth and spatial organisation.
Dr Daraojimba has received several competitive awards and research grants, including the African Humanities Program (AHP) Postdoctoral Fellowship of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) (2020), the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) Early Career Academic Grant (2018), Society of Antiquaries of London Research Grants (2020 and 2025), and the Cambridge–Africa Alborada Research Grant (2020/21 and 2023/24) and Cambridge Humanities Research Grant (2025/26). He has also undertaken professional training in Global Social Archaeology at Kyushu University, Japan (2016), and Community Archaeology at the University of Cambridge (2019).

In addition to his research and teaching, Dr Daraojimba has contributed to academic service as Assistant Business Manager of the West African Journal of Archaeology (WAJA). He is a member of several professional and learned societies, including the Archaeological Association of Nigeria (AAN), West African Archaeological Association (WAAA), World Archaeological Congress (WAC), Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA), Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL),International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), and the Palynological Association of Nigeria (PAN). Heis currently the national representative (Nigeria) at the World Archaeological Congress (WAC).