The first striking feature of this book is the large proportion of its many authors who are either Africans of who live in Africa; all, of course, carry out fieldwork there. Its size and comprehensive coverage allows not only a very wide overview of development in Africa from c.8,000 B.C. to the present-day but also unique review chapters as well as in-depth studies. Contrary to common perception, Africa's past emerges from this book as anything but some kind of vast barren area which was a void, open to all extraneious influence, and thus eager to welcome incoming innovations and colonizers in order to be pushed into some kind of development. Instead, the continent emerges as the proud possessor of a vast and highly complex inter-weaving of peoples and cultures, practicing an enormous diversity of economic and social strategies in an amazingly heterogeneous number of environental situations. In some areas, hunting and gathering was a successful adaptation, in some, pastoralism, in others, small agricultural communities, and in still others, urbanism.
At long last, the archaeology of Africa has revealed enough of Africa's unwritten past to confound all preconceptions about this continent and to upset the 'truth' as so far inferred from historic written records. Africa's past was a vibrant and unique one. Without an understanding of its past complexities, it is impossible to grasp Africa's present, let alone its future. George H O Abungu Kenya, L Adamowicz Mozambique, J Alexander University of Cambridge, Bassey W. Andah Nigeria, James Anquandah Ghana, Roger Blench, N'Sanda Buleli