The Archaeology and Ethnography of Central Africa

This book provides the first detailed description of the prehistory of the Loango coast of west-central Africa over the course of more than 3000 years.

James Denbow (Author)

9781107673793, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 September 2018

244 pages, 79 b/w illus. 10 maps
25.5 x 17.8 x 1.4 cm, 0.49 kg

'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

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Physical anthropology [JHMP], Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Archaeology by period / region [HDD], African history [HBJH]