Product Description

This volume surveys archaeological data from West Africa, examining sites from the Senegambia to the Cameroon. The focus is on the archaeological record of the past 500 years, a period that witnessed dramatic transformations in African political and social systems, as well as the consequences of European expansion, the advent of the Atlantic slave trave, and the expansion of Islamic polities in the West African Sahel. While historians have examined many aspects of this period, the written record provides only limited insight into the history and development of many areas. Archaeology has the potential to provide unique information not accessible through documentary records or oral traditions. Thus, the material record offers the most valuable means of evaluating both change and continuity in African societies over the past 500 years.The geographical and topical scope of this volume is extremely timely. Historical archaeology, particularly aspects dealing with European interactions with indigenous populations, is an area that has received increasing attention over the past decade. There has also been a growing interest in studies of Africa and the African diaspora. This volume, the first to draw together archaeological syntheses of various parts of West Africa, will be an important resource for West Africanists and all researchers interested in the indigenous response to European expansion, as well as for those examining African continuitites in the Americas.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1892162 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-09
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.20 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

From the Inside Flap
New Approaches to Anthropological Archaeology

Series editors:

Thomas E. Levy, University of California, San Diego, Augustin F. C. Holl, University of Michigan, and Guillermo Algaze, University of California, San Diego

Anthropological Archaeology offers a methodologically refreshing approach to the study of cultural evolution. It recognizes the fundamental role that anthropology now plays in archaeology and also integrates the strengths of various research paradigms which characterize archaeology on the world scene today, including new or processual, post-processual, evolutionist, cognitive, symbolic, Marxist and historical archaeologies. It does so by taking into account the cultural and, when possible, historical context of the material remains being studied. This involves the development of models concerning the formative role of cognition, symbolism and ideology in human societies to explain the more material and economic dimensions of human culture that are the natural purview of archaeological data. It also involves an understanding of the cultural ecology of the societies being studied, and of the limitations and opportunities that the environment imposes on the evolution or devolution of human societies. Based on the assumption that cultures never develop in isolation, Anthropological Anthropology takes a regional approach to tackling fundamental issues concerning past cultural evolution anywhere in the world.

This new series welcomes proposals from "intellectual foragers" whose interests combine field research with theoretical studies of issues of cultural evolution in the past and in the ethno-archaeological present. The series differs from much theoretical discourse in archaeology today in that it is dedicated to publishing work firmly grounded in archaeological fact, while also venturing to explore more speculative ideas about how cultures evolve and change.

About the Author
Christopher R. DeCorse is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University.