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In a remarkable achievement that resonates across continents, Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, a US-based Nigerian archaeologist, has been honored with the prestigious 2025 Dan David Prize, securing a $300,000 award for his groundbreaking research into the history and cultural significance of glass beads in West Africa. Announced on May 28, 2025, during a ceremony in Italy, this accolade marks Babalola as the second Nigerian to claim this distinguished prize, following in the footsteps of Professor Saheed Aderinto, who won in 2023. Widely regarded as the world’s largest award for historical scholarship, the Dan David Prize celebrates early- and mid-career scholars whose innovative work reshapes our understanding of the past. Babalola’s success is not just a personal milestone but a testament to the rich intellectual heritage of Nigeria and the global impact of African archaeology. This blog post delves into his journey, the significance of his research, and the broader implications of this recognition.
A Journey Rooted in Nigeria
Abidemi Babalola’s academic odyssey began in Nigeria, where he earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Archaeology from the University of Ibadan, one of the country’s most esteemed institutions. His early exposure to Nigeria’s archaeological landscape, particularly the historic city of Ile-Ife, ignited a passion for uncovering the technological and cultural achievements of pre-colonial West Africa. This foundation propelled him to Rice University in Houston, Texas, where he completed his PhD in Anthropological Archaeology, specializing in the archaeology of pyrotechnologies, the emergence of complex societies, and trade networks.
Babalola’s career trajectory reflects a blend of rigorous scholarship and global collaboration. Between 2016 and 2024, he held prestigious fellowships, including the Smuts Fellowship at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Cambridge, the McMillan Stewart Fellowship at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, and a Marie Curie Sklodowska Fellowship at the Cyprus Institute. Currently, he serves as a research archaeologist at the British Museum’s Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, while leading the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) Archaeology Project in Benin City, Nigeria. This international experience has equipped him with the tools to challenge long-held narratives about African history and technology.
The Research That Changed the Narrative
At the heart of Babalola’s award-winning work is his exploration of glass bead production in Ile-Ife, a historic Yoruba city renowned as a center of ancient civilization. His project, titled “The Ile-Ife Glass Bead Series… and the Glass Bead Roads in West African Archaeology,” reveals that glassmaking in West Africa predates European colonialism and was developed independently, overturning Eurocentric assumptions of a non-inventive Africa. Using a multidisciplinary approach that merges archaeology, ethnography, history, and material science, Babalola has demonstrated that forest communities in pre-15th century West Africa produced glass beads, which were traded across the trans-Saharan network—a discovery he terms “the glass bead roads.”
This research has transformed global understandings of technological innovation in Africa. By analyzing the chaîne opératoire (the sequence of operations) involved in bead production, Babalola has shown that these communities were not merely passive participants in trade but active suppliers of valuable goods. His findings highlight themes of creativity, resilience, specialization, and indigenous knowledge systems, offering a nuanced view of pre-colonial African societies. The unique high lime high alumina (HLHA) glass identified at Ile-Ife, a type distinct from other global glass traditions, underscores the region’s independent technological prowess.
Babalola’s work extends beyond academia into public engagement. He directs the Archaeology of Glass project in Ile-Ife and has spearheaded a British Museum (Arcadia) Endangered Material Knowledge Grant project to digitize glass bead-making traditions in southwestern and central Nigeria. His upcoming mobile exhibition, “Science, Technology, and Invention in the Empire of Ile-Ife,” set to travel to major cities in southwest Nigeria, aims to connect contemporary communities with their ancestral heritage, making archaeology a living discipline.
The Dan David Prize: A Global Stage
The Dan David Prize, endowed by the Dan David Foundation and based at Tel Aviv University, is the world’s largest history award, with an annual purse of $3 million. Since its relaunch in 2021 with a focus on historical research, it has awarded up to nine prizes of $300,000 each year to early- and mid-career scholars. Babalola’s selection as a 2025 winner alongside eight other global researchers—spanning topics from Holocaust archaeology to Renaissance Black identity—reflects the prize’s commitment to innovative scholarship. Ariel David, son of the prize’s founder, noted that this year’s winners “challenge us to think about the past while rethinking how we shed light on it.”
Babalola’s accolades extend beyond the Dan David Prize. He has received the Shanghai Archaeology Forum Discovery Award (2019), the World Archaeology Congress Blaze O’Connor Award (2022), and the Archaeological Institute of America’s Conservation and Heritage Site Award (2025). His contributions to works like “Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa” and “Africa: The Definitive Visual History of a Continent” further cement his reputation as a leading voice in African archaeology.
A Personal Connection and National Pride
The victory carries a deeply personal dimension for Babalola, who shares a decades-long friendship with Saheed Aderinto, the 2023 Dan David Prize winner. The two met as undergraduates at the University of Ibadan in 1998 and later pursued their PhDs in the United States, raising families in Texas while overcoming significant challenges. Aderinto, now a professor at Florida International University, celebrated Babalola’s success on social media, praising his “hard labor and mind-blowing discoveries” that position Ile-Ife as a cornerstone of Yoruba and African history. This camaraderie underscores a legacy of Nigerian excellence in global academia.
Across Nigeria and the diaspora, Babalola’s win has sparked widespread pride. Posts on X in June 2025 hailed him as a symbol of intellectual resilience, with users lauding his ability to elevate African narratives on the world stage. This sentiment echoes a growing recognition of Nigerian scholars who, despite limited local resources, achieve international acclaim. Babalola’s success follows other recent Nigerian victories, such as Oluwatobi Oyinlola’s Guinness World Record for the smallest GPS tracking device, highlighting a surge in innovation from the region.
Challenges and the Road Ahead
Despite his achievements, Babalola’s journey reflects the broader challenges faced by African scholars. Limited funding, infrastructure deficits, and the need to navigate global academic biases have shaped his career. His reliance on international fellowships and collaborations underscores the gap in local support for archaeological research in Nigeria. The ongoing construction of the Museum of West African Arts in Benin City, where he serves as lead archaeologist, offers hope for a dedicated space to preserve and showcase Africa’s past, but its success depends on sustained investment.
Babalola’s work also raises questions about the preservation of endangered material knowledge. As traditional glassmaking techniques fade, his digitization efforts are critical to safeguarding this heritage. However, the lack of comprehensive archaeological training programs in Nigeria means that future generations may struggle to build on his legacy without significant educational reform.
Broader Implications for African Scholarship
Babalola’s $300,000 prize provides a substantial boost to his ongoing projects, including the mobile exhibition and further excavations at Ile-Ife. More importantly, it amplifies the visibility of African archaeology at a time when the humanities face diminishing support globally. His research challenges the marginalization of African contributions to science and technology, aligning with a global movement to decolonize historical narratives. By centering forest communities in the trans-Saharan trade network, he redefines their roles as innovators, not just intermediaries.
This victory also inspires a new generation of African scholars. As Nigeria grapples with economic and infrastructural challenges, Babalola’s success demonstrates the potential of intellectual capital to drive national pride and global influence. It calls for increased investment in education and research, particularly in fields that illuminate Africa’s pre-colonial achievements. The government and private sector could learn from his example, supporting initiatives like the MOWAA project to foster a culture of inquiry and discovery.
A Legacy in the Making
Abidemi Babalola’s $300,000 Dan David Prize win is more than an individual honor—it is a celebration of Nigeria’s intellectual heritage and a beacon for African scholarship. His painstaking excavations, innovative methodologies, and commitment to public outreach have unearthed a hidden chapter of human history, proving that Africa’s past is rich with invention and resilience. As he continues to lead projects that bridge academia and community, Babalola’s work promises to inspire future archaeologists and historians to explore the continent’s untold stories.
The journey from Ile-Ife to the global stage is a testament to perseverance and vision. With the prize’s support, Babalola is poised to expand his research, ensuring that the “glass bead roads” illuminate Africa’s contributions for generations to come. For Nigeria, this moment is a call to invest in its scholars, recognizing that their triumphs can reshape the world’s understanding of its past—and its future.
