African Archaeology

The mosques of Harar have been the focus of some architectural and historical study but not archaeological investigation. This was redressed through excavation of six mosques in the city, the results of which are presented. These were identified from existing historical research as significant in the Islamization of Harar. Consensus on either the date or processes of Islamization does not exist. The partial history of the mosques investigated - Aw Abdal, Aw Abadir, Aw Meshad, Din Agobera, Fehkredin, Jami - is based on only a few sources. The results of the excavations provide insights into the Islamization of Harar and supplement the limited historical sources. The six radiocarbon dates obtained indicate a varied mosque chronology spanning the late 15th and early 20th centuries AD. Evidence indicative of the use of mosques for educational purposes, local practices such as animal sacrifice and child burial near the mihrab, and for extensive mosque rebuilding, alteration and remodelling was found. Comparable mosques in Djibouti, Somaliland, and elsewhere in Ethiopia are considered. It is concluded that all the Harari mosques investigated postdate the late 15th century and that the city also dates from this era and was linked with the establishment of Harar as the capital of Adal. Prior to this the Hararis, likely in the form of the legendary Harla, were elsewhere, possibly at Harlaa and other sites in the eastern Harar Plateau and Chercher Mountains.

Central Africa had a diverse array of empires, states, and cultures in the precolonial era. The region encompasses all of part of the modern nations of Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equitorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, and Zambia.

Central Africa is an immense region, reaching far beyond the extensive equitorial forest. It includes the Atlantic coastline and trade links, expansive river networks that link together the forest to coastline and savanna areas, and throughout prehistory has been interacting with areas to the south and east. This vastness of territory makes it hard to synthesize under one rubric, and it remains further complicated by how understudied it has been by archaeologists in particular.

After a short review, this chapter will focus in on some of the unique political, religious, cultural, and economic structures of a number of these societies. It employs a number of case studies chosen for their historical importance, perceived readers' interests, and availability of published materials. Various cross-cultural examples from the Central African past provide insight into the relationship between status and power. They show how daily and ritual interactions between people and their environments transformed the region during the precolonial era.

Southern Africa is a region rich in history. Its fame stretches from the first hominid fossil found to an era of precolonial Africa states and chiefdoms. In the period leading up to1800, smaller farming villages that raised livestock grew in size and concentration as the region became increasingly involved in trade with East Africa, the Middle East, India, China, and Indonesia after the first millennium CE. These legendary states are still well-known today: the modern-country of Zimbabwe, for example, was named after the famous stone-walled sites associated with the Iron Age kingdom of Great Zimbabwe (1300-1450 CE). 

This chapter covers Southern Africa to 1800 CE, emphasizing specifically the Middle and Later Iron Age periods (900-1800). The focus on this period helps the reader to learn about the complex mosaic of peoples on the southern African landscape. During the Iron Age, we see the first urbanism and inequality spread throughout the region as agropastoral communities grew in size. These villages, towns, cities and even kingdoms were connected across southern Africa though vast internal and external trade linkages that connected the region from the Congolese basin to the coast of Mozambique and beyond. The region referred to here as southern Africa includes the modern countries of Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, southern Zambia, and, in part, Mozambique. This chapter will, however, focus primarily on the areas of Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

The reader is first orientated to the geography as well as a brief summary of the earlier (late Pleistocene through Late Stone Age) periods to place these developments in context. Sections on the Early, Middle, and Late Iron Age periods trace these agropastoral communities as they grew from small agricultural villages and cattle posts to large kingdoms and states that controlled regional trade in ivory and gold. Links to the Indian Ocean trade and links to African interior place pre-1800 southern Africa within a regional and world-wide context. The remaining section covers how increasing political centralization and warfare and the growing involvement of the Europeans led to a period known as the Mfecane, during which many people lost their homes and homelands and which ultimately ended this era of flourishing trade and wealth.

This article presents an overview of the history of archaeological work in Somaliland and Somalia from the late nineteenth century to the present, situating that work within its ever-changing social and political contexts. It also assesses the current challenges and opportunities that archaeological practice faces in both regions. Despite numerous obstacles—including political instability, a fragmented academic community, and defijiciencies in the publication and dissemination of fijindings in multiple research languages—the article contends
that the extensive data from previous and current archaeological studies, if assembled and properly utilized, can shed light on a range of key questions in the prehistory and history of the Horn of Africa. Finally, the article notes the growing threats to the archaeological and historical heritage in the region, and suggests how institutions, academics and the Somali community can join efforts to protect and preserve the remains of one of the most impressive African heritages.

and Keywords Pastoralist societies arose in the arid and semi-arid western regions of southern Africa over the last 2000 years. These were both Bantu-speaking and Khoekhoe-speaking groups who practiced diverse combinations of carnivorous and milch pastoralism but also main­ tained some dependence on hunting and gathering, with varying but generally minimal reliance on agriculture. Historical sources provide many insights into pastoral culture and husbandry practices, but archaeological and ethnographic evidence is critical to the understanding of precolonial pastoralism. Most research has concentrated on the Cape Khoen, but increasingly, a broader view has come to include archaeological and ethno­ graphic evidence from other parts of the region, casting new light on the origins and growth of pastoralism in southern Africa.

A series of well-characterized specimens, known as the Peabody-Yale Reference Obsidians (PYRO) sets, has been designed to aid with calibrating and assessing X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) data, including portable XRF (pXRF) measurements, for obsidian sourcing. Each of these ten matched sets consists of 35 specimens: 20 specimens for calibration and 15 specimens for evaluation. These sets include not only obsidians with common geochemical compositions (i.e., alkaline rhyolites) but also rarer ones (i.e., peralkaline rhyolitic, trachytic, and andesitic specimens, including East African Rift obsidians). When used as described, the PYRO sets are suitable to calibrate and evaluate XRF data for obsidians worldwide. A set can be borrowed following loan policies of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, which will also accession a set. Publishing all source information – from their names and GPS coordinates to the datasets used for the recommended values – not only allows the sets to be replicated by others but also fulfills the demands of scientific transparency. Their main purpose is facilitating collaborations and “big data” projects, and the PYRO sets were designed to complement existing protocols for calibration and evaluation. In short, the sets are intended as a tool for almost anyone (e.g., a student who borrows an instrument to source artifacts) to meet – and even exceed – experts' practices involving transparency, accuracy, and reproducibility.

Trade and rare presents from Persia and India, with an interpretation of precise, oriented marks on the roof of Beta Ghebriel the so called 'Palace' in Lalibela bring to the conclusion that Ghebriel was the fief of a scholarly community possessing a precise astronomical instrument. It simply could have been nothing else.
As more rational and cautious scholars will hear of an Ethiopian xiii century positional instrument with due disbelief, I convinced my daughter to produce a working model.
I would suggest linguists to look for planetary tables, Zij in Farsi, in the 200,000 estimated never studied Ethiopian manuscripts.

From Hegel to Hugh Trevor-Roper, the notion of Africa as a continent without a precolonial history of its own dominated European thinking for two centuries. Today, the idea of an ‘unhistoric’ Africa rightly seems absurd. But who gets to write that history? An essential part of the decolonisation of narratives, of both the past and of the present, is that African voices are central. Yet there are real barriers preventing those voices from being heard within and especially beyond the continent. Archaeology and tangible and intangible heritage are at the forefront of these issues, distilling the difficulties and the opportunities of developing alternative narratives and reconciling rapid development with enhanced awareness of archaeological heritage, tourism with environmental and cultural protection, and local needs with global demands.

This edited forum includes 6 short pieces by 5 different contributors:
1. Critically Engaging African Food Security and Usable Pasts Through Archaeology: Amanda Logan
2. Why Centennial-Scale Data Is Relevant to Modern Food Security in Africa and Why Applying Long-Term Insights Requires a Methodology of its Own: Daryl Stump
3. “Infrastructures” of Pre-Colonial Food Security in Eastern Africa: Steven Goldstein
4. Long-Term Histories of Tiv Agriculture and Their Implications for Food Security and Sustainability Today: Emuobosa Orijemie
5. Food Sovereignty in Africa’s Past Holds Lessons for African Futures: Amanda Logan
6. Looking Back and Thinking Forward: A Usable Archeology of Garden-Based Farming in South Africa in a Time of Land Grabs: M.H. Schoeman