Archaeology Africa

Provides a detailed introduction to archaeology as practised in the African continent.Martin Hall explains how archaeologists find sites, design an excavation, date finds, and write history. The reader is given an outline of the history of the African continent, from the early hominids to the present. South Africa: David Philip/New Africa Books

It is authoritative, brings to our attention much new information, and is written with a passionate commitment to Africa's archaeology, past, present and future. -, ... textbooks appropriate for teaching African archaeology are particularly sparse. Thus, Martin Hall's new book is a welcome addition to the literature., This book is the first to bring archaeology and theory together in Africa. This is enormously important. Today, we live increasingly in a globally homogenous culture; archaeological theory and methods too have been applied globally as part of the colonial enterprise. This book turns the tide in African archaeology, taking general theoretical approaches in the discipline and reinterpreting them in a specifically African context. It opens up a dialogue and confronts the taken-for-granted nature of a global archaeology, forcing it to be newly sensitive to context. This dialogue is extended into the way the book is written: competing voices are heard and a more diverse yet inclusive archaeology is engendered. This path-breaking volume deserves to be read inside and outside Africa. - Ian Hodder, University of Cambridge, Martin Hall's book should remain compulsory reading for undergraduate students for many years to come. Members of the public who may in the past have found or thought of African archaeology writings as something which only other archaeologists could read and understand will find it an extremely useful introduction to the discipline in general and to African archaeology in particular. In my view, Martin Hall has successfully demystified archaeology for African and non-African readers. - Gilbert Pwiti in AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW