US-Based Nigerian Archaeologist Abidemi Babalola Wins $300,000 Dan David

US-based Nigerian archaeologist Dr. Abidemi Babalola has been awarded the 2025 Dan David Prize, a $300,000 recognition regarded as the world’s most prestigious award for historical research. The prize honours outstanding early- to mid-career scholars whose work redefines how the past is studied and understood.

Babalola was selected for his pioneering research on early glass production in West Africa, which dismantles Eurocentric assumptions about Africa’s technological past. His findings reveal that forest-dwelling communities in pre-15th-century West Africa independently developed glassmaking techniques and traded glass beads across vast networks routes he describes as “glass bead roads.”

Currently, he serves as the lead archaeologist for the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) Archaeology Project in Benin City, Nigeria, affiliated with the British Museum’s Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Previously, he held a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the museum, where he studied copper alloy objects from Nigeria’s Lower Niger region.

Dr. Babalola earned his PhD in Anthropology from Rice University in Houston, Texas, and holds MA and BA degrees in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Ibadan.

Beyond the Dan David Prize, his work has received global acclaim. He is a recipient of the Shanghai Archaeology Forum Discovery Award (2019), the Blaze O’Connor Award from the World Archaeology Congress (2022), and the Archaeological Institute of America’s Conservation and Heritage Site Award (2025).

Through his scholarship, Babalola is reshaping how African civilizations are viewed highlighting indigenous innovation, scientific sophistication, and the continent’s enduring contributions to global history.