1 - The legacy of prehistory: an essay on the background to the individuality of African cultures

Summary

SETTING THE STAGE

The ethnographer or economist – as, indeed, most social scientists – begins with the advantage that he is studying living people. His conclusions are based upon his own direct observations of human behaviour and of the structural organizations that man has developed to enable him to adjust to the changing patterns of his society. The historian also possesses this advantage, though usually at second hand, through the personalities and personal records of the past preserved in the written word. The archaeologist – or rather the palaeo-anthropologist, which would be a more accurate description of him – has no such advantage. No identifiable personalities project themselves from the stage on which his nameless actors play their part and he has no script from which to discover their characteristics; thus most things about them – their abilities, emotions, aspirations and limitations – are likely never to be known, Fortunately however not all understanding need be lost, for an increasing amount of information is becoming available through knowledge of the context in which the changing pattern of human behaviour took place Although as one scene follows another and the scenario and props of the earlier ones become dispersed, lost or disarranged, interpretation is rendered more difficult or ambiguous yet the closer in, time to the present, the more complete are the sets and the more recognizably are the players related to some of those who still walk the stage today so that the more reliable will be the reconstruction possible from a study of their habits and behaviour When all this information is gathered together and correlated, palaeo-anthropologists have a basis for interpreting the more distant past and so for reconstructing the life and ways of the actors.