The Archaeology of Southern Africa

Description

Some of the earliest human populations lived in Southern Africa, and evidence from sites there has inspired key debates on human origins and on the emergence of modern humans. The sub-continent has one of the world's richest heritages of rock art, and specialists have developed innovative theories about its meaning and significance that have influenced the understanding of rock art everywhere. Passionate arguments about the hunter-gatherer way of life have centred on Southern African cases, and the relationship between archaeological and anthropological data is also central to understanding the past of Southern Africa's pastoralist and farmer communities. The pre-colonial states of the region provide some of the best documented cases of the influence of external trade on the development of African polities. Peter Mitchell has produced the first comprehensive modern synthesis of the sub-continent's archaeology. His book offers a thorough-going overview of three million years of Southern African history.

Peter Mitchell is Lecturer in African Prehistory at the University of Oxford, and Tutor and a Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford.

'... a synthesis of southern African archaeology was long overdue ... Mitchell's book is timely and it will make a significant contribution to the growing corpus of published material on southern African archaeology. It represents the state of knowledge at the turn of the millennium, and is an invaluable tool for scholars, teachers and students with an interest in the long and rich archaeological history of southern Africa. I recommend that it finds its way on to bookshelves, and I will certainly be pleased to have it on mine.' Before Farming: The Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers 'This could be the most influential publication on the archaeology of Africa for decades to come to come. ... this extensive survey of the archaeology in Southern Africa is as interesting and informative as the geographical span of its contents.' Open History '... well written, very generously referenced and sensibly balanced ... Mitchell ... should be congratulated in making a very great deal of food for thought available in an interesting and digestible form.' Antiquity