Science news
April 2024Maarten Couttenier’s latest book, Anthropology and Race in Belgium and Congo (1839-1922), was published by Routledge earlier this year. It examines the history of physical anthropology in Belgium throughout the 19th century and shows how the notion of ‘race’ shaped various forms of European nationalism as well as imperialism in earlier and later Belgian (attempts at) colonization.
March 2024On this special day, we are highlighting our dear colleague and researcher Caroline Michelier, from the Earth Sciences Department.
February 2024AfricaMuseum was one of seven partners of HOME, a research project on human remains in Belgian collections. This article presents the contributions of the AfricaMuseum as well as the conclusions drawn within the framework of the HOME project.
January 2024A pioneering study in the Kongo Central province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has underscored the critical role of Nature-based solutions in mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss.
October 2023Provenance research on collections from the Global South in Europe is now unavoidable in the fields of museum studies and cultural policy, yet no scholarly work has scrutinized the collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren (Belgium) as a whole.
July 2023‘Cahiers africains’ is the successor to the ‘Cahiers du CEDAF’ series (1971-1992) and has been released on a regular basis since 1993 as a joint publication of the Royal Museum for Central Africa and L’Harmattan (Paris). The 100th volume, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of the series, focuses on wedding celebrations in Africa.
May 2023The now extinct St Helena Giant Earwig was the largest earwig in the world. At the request of the St Helena National Trust, the St Helena Government and the St Helena Museum, the AfricaMuseum donated a specimen of this iconic insect to the Museum of St Helena, where it is now on display.
April 2023In the new book Bushmeat. Culture, Economy and Conservation in Central Africa, Theodore Trefon analyses the environmental, social and economic aspects of bushmeat consumption in the Congo basin.
March 2023In the new book The bird species from the type collection, ornithologist Michel Louette presents the bird species whose type specimens are kept at the AfricaMuseum. Illustrated with magnificent photos and original artwork, this book presents a rich and varied collection of birds, most of which have seldom been spotted.
February 2023An international team of researchers led by the University of Helsinki has revised the phylogeny of the Elapoidea, an important group of snakes. By doing so, they discovered a new family of snakes. The study was carried out in collaboration with researchers from the AfricaMuseum and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and was based on specimens from both museums.