The Archaeology and Ethnography of Central Africa
The Archaeology and Ethnography of Central Africa
The Archaeology and Ethnography of Central Africa provides the first detailed description of the prehistory of the Loango coast of west-central Africa over the course of more than 3000 years. The archaeological data presented in this volume comes from a pivotal area through which, as linguistic and historical reconstructions have long indicated, Bantu-speaking peoples expanded before reaching eastern and southern Africa. Despite its historical importance, the prehistory of the Atlantic coastal regions of west-central Africa has until now remained almost unknown. James Denbow offers an imaginative approach to this subject, integrating the scientific side of fieldwork with the interplay of history, ethnography, politics, economics, and personalities. The resulting 'anthropology of archaeology' highlights the connections between past and present, change and modernity, in one of the most inaccessible and poorly known regions of west-central and southern Africa.
- Presents the detailed scientific results of the only large-scale archaeological study conducted on the coast of west-central Africa
- Highlights the issue of the threat to Africa's cultural resources posed by the increasing pace of development in a continent with few practical or legal structures to protect its heritage
- A unique aspect of the book is the way in which it combines personal and ethnographic detail to contextualize and historicize archaeological fieldwork
Reviews & endorsements
"… the almost total lack of prior archaeological work in the Tong hills, and the relative lack of such research across much of northern Ghana, makes this an important contribution to regional history …"
Peter Mitchell, Antiquity
'There is much to like about this book: it provides information on a little known area and a brief discussion of larger regional connections, and the personal narratives provide a good description of the processes of fieldwork in Congo, sometimes on a shoestring.' Scott MacEachern, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa
Product details
September 2018Paperback
9781107673793
244 pages
255 × 178 × 14 mm
0.49kg
79 b/w illus. 10 maps
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Behind the scenes of research
- 2. Pride and prejudice: big oil, eucalyptus, and the people without history
- 3. Natural and cultural environment
- 4. Preservation: heritage and reconnaissance
- 5. Ceramic later Stone Age excavations
- 6. The early Iron Age
- 7. Later Iron Age sites and the historic period
- 8. Opening Pandora's box: from Loango to the Okavango
- 9. Summation.
