Researching Africa’s Past: New Contributions from British Archaeologists

edited by Peter Mitchell, Anne Haour and John Hobart

These seventeen papers were presented at a conference on African archaeology, held at St Hugh's College, Oxford, in April 2002. The topics span nineteen countries, from Morocco in the far northwest of the continent to Lesotho, Madagascar and South Africa in the south, from Mauritania in the west to Ethiopia and Kenya in the east. Together they show the strength of research in African archaeology being undertaken at the present time by British-based academics, and the relevance of Africa to a whole range of archaeological debates, including: early hominid evolution and the recent appearance and expansion of our own species, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, the early development of food-production, the development of metallurgy, the formation of complex societies, and the sociopolitical impacts of long-distance trade.

Introduction (Peter Mitchell, Anne Haour and John Hobart); J. Desmond Clark 1916-2002 & Betty Clark 1915-2002 (Ray Inskeep); Understanding hominid landscapes at Makapansgat, South Africa (Anthony Sinclair, Lorna McCraith and Emma Nelson); 'Environmental magnetism': evidence for climatic change during the Later Stone Age using the magnetic susceptability of cave sediments from Rose Cottage Cave, South Africa (Andy Herries and Alf Latham); Anyone for hxaro? Thoughts on the theory and practice of exchange in southern African Later Stone Age archaeology (Peter Mitchell); An old fashioned approach to a modern hobby: fishing in the Lesotho Highlands (John Hobart); Ostrich eggshell beads and the environment, past and present (Chris Wingfield); Hunter-gatherers and the first farmers of prehistoric Ghana: the Kintampo Archaeological Research Project (Derek Watson); Looking forwards by looking backwards: west of Aksum (Jacke Phillips); New light on the Tichitt Tradition: a preliminary report on survey and excavation at Dhar Nema (Kevin MacDonald, Robert Vernet, Dorian Fuller and James Woodhouse); Timbuktu the less mysterious? (Tim Insoll); Islam and alternative religious practices during the second millennium AD in the Inland Niger Delta of Mali (Noemie Arazi); Why these African Walls? Some considerations from Kufan Kanawa, Niger (Anne Haour); The soils of Engaruka: preliminary soil exhaustion tests on a pre-colonial agricultural landscape in Tanzania (Darryl Stump); Recent research on the archaeology of Buganda (Andrew Reid); Iron-smelting and bananas in Buganda (Andrew Reid and Ruth Young); Kings and ancestors: interpreting the past at KoBulawayo, Zimbabwe (Gwilym Hughes and Joseph Muringaniza); Subtidal archaeological investigations in Mombasa's Old Port (Wes Forsythe, Rory Quinn and Colin Breen); The Shire archaeological landscape, northern Ethiopia: towards a strategy of cultural resource management and a workable Sites and Monuments Record (Niall Finneran); African archaeology in Britain: a commentary on current trends and contexts (Paul Lane).