The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology

by Mitchell, Peter; Lane, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780199569885
• ISBN10: 0199569886
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-08-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Africa has the longest and arguably the most diverse archaeological record of any of the continents. It is where the human lineage first evolved and from whereHomo sapiensspread across the rest of the world. Later, it witnessed novel experiments in food-production and unique trajectories to urbanism and the organisation of large communities that were not always structured along strictly hierarchical lines. Millennia of engagement with societies in other parts of the world confirm Africa's active participation in the construction of the modern world, while the richness of its history, ethnography, and linguistics provide unusually powerful opportunities for constructing interdisciplinary narratives of Africa's past. ThisHandbookprovides a comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of African archaeology, covering the entirety of the continent's past from the beginnings of human evolution to the archaeological legacy of European colonialism. As well as covering almost all periods and regions of the continent, it includes a mixture of key methodological and theoretical issues and debates, and situates the subject's contemporary practice within the discipline's history and the infrastructural challenges now facing its practitioners. Bringing together essays on all these themes from over seventy contributors, many of them living and working in Africa, it offers a highly accessible, contemporary account of the subject for use by scholars and students of not only archaeology, but also history, anthropology, and other disciplines.

Author Biography

Peter Mitchell is Professor of African Archaeology, Tutor and Fellow at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and Honorary Research Associate, GAES, at the University of the Witwatersrand. From 2004 until 2006 he served as President of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists, and since 2006 has been Honrary Secretary of the British Institute in Eastern Africa.

Paul Lane is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of York and Honary Research Associate, GAES, at the University of the Witwatersrand. From 2008 to 2010 he served as President of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Part 1: Introduction
1. Introducing African Archaeology, Peter Mitchell and Paul Lane
Part II: Doing African Archaeology: Theory, Method, Practice
2. Archaeological Practice in Africa: A Historical Perspective, Graham Connah
3. Oral History, Oral Traditions, and Archaeology: The Application of Structural Analyses, Peter Schmidt
4. Language, Linguistics, and Archaeology: Their Integration in the Study of African Prehistory, Roger Blench
5. Genetics and Archaeology, Scott MacEachern
6. Archaeology and Migration in Africa, Ceri Ashley
7. Ethnoarchaeological Research in Africa, Diane Lyons
8. Studying African Stone Tools, Christian Tryon
9. A Century of Ceramic Studies in Africa, Olivier Gosselain and Alexandre Livingstone-Smith)
10. The Archaeology of African Metalworking, Shadrack Chirikure
11. Rock Art Research in Africa, Benjamin Smith
12. The Archaeology of Ritual and Religions in Africa, Timothy Insoll
13. Material Culture, Space, and Identity, Stepahnie Wynne-Jones
14. Landscape Archaeology, Jeff Fleisher
15. Maritime Archaeology in Africa, Colin Breen
16. Managing Africa's Archaeological Heritage, Noemie Arazi and Ibrahima Thiaw
17. Museums and Public Archaeology in Africa, Chapurukha Kusimba and Carla Klehm
18. Archaeology and Education, Amanda Esterhuysen and Paul Lane
19. Politics, Ideology, and Indigenous Perspectives, John Giblin
Part III: Becoming Human
20. Hominin Evolution as the Context for African Prehistory, Robert Foley
21. The Oldowan: Early Hominins and the Beginning of Human Culture, Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo
22. The African Acheulean: An Archaeological Summary, Mohamed Sahnouni, Sileshi Semaw and Michael Rogers
23. Genetic and Fossil Evidence for Modern Human Origins, Marta Lahr
24. Beyond Modernity, Lawrence Barham
Part IV: Hunters, Gatherers, and Intensifiers: The Diversity of African Foragers
25. Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding African Hunter-Gatherers, Lyn Wadley
26. Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa before 20,000 years ago, Marlize Lombard
27. The Middle Stone Age of Eastern Africa, Laura Basell
28. Hunting and Gathering in Africa's Tropical Forests at the end of the Pleistocene and in the Early Holocene, Els Cornelissen
29. Hunter-Gatherers of the Nile Valley and the Sahara before 12,000 years ago, Elena Garcea
30. Hunter-Gatherers of the Maghreb: 25,000-6000 years ago, Nick Barton and Abdeljalil Bouzouggar
31. Hunter-Gatherer-Fishers of the Sahara and the Sahel 12,000-4000 years ago, Barbara Barich
32. Hunter-Gatherer-Fishers of Eastern and South-Central Africa since 20,000 years ago, Sibel Barut Kusimba
33. Southern African Hunter-Gatherers of the last 25,000 years, Peter Mitchell
Part V: Food for Thought: The Archaeology of African Pastoralist and Farming Communities
34. Domesticating Animals in Africa, Diane Gifford-Gonzalez and Olivier Hanotte
35. Domesticating Plants in Africa, Dorian Fuller and Elizabeth Hildebrand
36. The Emergence and Spread of Herding in Northern Africa: A Critical Reappraisal, Savino Di Lernia
37. Early Farming Societies Along the Nile, Randi Haaland and Gunnar Haaland
38. Pathways to Food-Production in the Sahel, Peter Breunig
39. Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Food-Production in the Horn of Africa, Matthew Curtis
40. The Archaeology of Pastoralism and Stock-Keeping in East Africa, Paul Lane
41. The Stone to Metal Age in West Africa, Joanna Casey
42. The Appearance and Development of Metallurgy South of the Sahara, Bertram Mapunda
43. Archaeologies of the Bantu Expansion, Pierre de Maret
44. The Archaeology of Herding in Southernmost Africa, Karim Sadr
45. Early Farming Communities of Southern and South-Central Africa, Peter Mitchell
46. The Archaeology of Agricultural Intensification in Africa, Daryl Stump
Part VI: Power, Prestige, and Consumption: African Towns and States and their Neighbours
47. The Archaeology of African Urbanism, Paul Sinclair
48. The Archaeology of the Pre-Colonial State in Africa, Cameron Monroe
49. The Archaeology of Clan- and Lineage-Based Societies in Africa, Matthew Davies
50. Pharaonic Egypt, Ian Shaw
51. Kerma and Kush and their Neighbours, Derek Welsby
52. Berber, Phoenicio-Punic, and Greek North Africa, Fares Moussa
53. Roman Africa and the Sahara, Anna Leone and Fares Moussa
54. Medieval and Post-Medieval States of the Nile Valley, David Edwards
55. Complex Societies of the Eritrean/Ethiopian Highlands and their Neighbours, David Phillipson
56. States, Trade, and Ethnicities in the Maghrib, Said Ennahid
57. Complex Societies, Urbanism, and Trade in the Western Sahel, Kevin MacDonald
58. States and Trade in the Central Sahel, Detlef Gronenborn
59. Towns and States of the West African Forest Belt, Akin Ogundiran
60. Recent Farming Communities and States in the Congo Basin and its Environs, Pierre de Maret
61. The Emergence of States in Great Lakes Africa, Andrew ReidNDREW REID
62. The Swahili World, Adria Laviolette
63. The Zimbabwe Culture and its Neighbours: Origins, Development, and Consequences of Social Complexity in Southern Africa, Innocent Pikirayi
64. Southern African Late Farming Communities, Alex Schoeman
65. Madagascar from Initial Settlement to the Growth of Kingdoms, Chantal Radimilahy
Part VII: African Societies and the Modern World System
66. The Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire in Northern and Northeastern Africa, Intisar El Zein
67. Contexts of Interaction: The Archaeology of European Exploration and Expansion in Western and Southern Africa in Comparative Perspective, Natalie Swanepoel
68. An archaeological Perspective on West Africa and the Post-1500 Atlantic World, Ibrahima Thiaw and Francois Richard
69. Connecting the Archaeologies of the Atlantic World: Africa and the African Diasporas, Ken Kelly
70. The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters in Eastern Africa, Sarah croucher
Index