The field research upon which this web site is founded was carried out between 1991 and 2008, principally from 1992 to 1996. It was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada in the form of grants to the Mandara Archaeological Project (1984-2008). Judy Sterner’s fieldwork was funded in part by the School of Oriental and African Studies and the University of London. Branwen Hennig, James Wade and Xavier Udo-Utun contributed photographs, and Ekkehard Wolff and Paul Newman provided wordlists of the Sukur language. More recently we have been working with linguist Michael F. Thomas of Washington State University to incorporate his knowledge of the Sakun (Sukur) language. We are grateful to the Nigerian Commission for Museums and Monuments and to their staff for permissions and assistance. Our greatest debt is of course to the late Hidi (chief) Gəzik Kənakakaw of Sukur, to his people and to our Sukur assistants, all of whom graciously received us and made our stays at Sukur the supreme fieldwork experiences of our lives. Hanu vena !

Thanks to the University of Calgary for its long term support of the Mandara Archaeological Project and for the hosting of sukur.info. Thanks to AFIDFF for hosting sukur.afidff.org.