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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2014
This report is the result of discussions and recommendations of the Archaeology Committee of the African Studies Association, which met in Chicago early in April, 1966. African archaeology is at present an international discipline producing close collaboration among scientists from different countries, and the future of archaeological research in the continent can best be viewed as an international exercise in which American palaeo-anthropologists are beginning to play an increasingly important part. These brief notes attempt to synthesize the present position in African prehistoric studies, to show the general direction in which these are being developed, and to indicate immediate priorities in basic research and training.
The 1965 Wenner-Gren Conference on African archaeology and evolutionary studies showed that palaeo-anthropology and the closely associated studies of stratigraphers and palaeontologists are now entering upon a new stage of precision in analysis, dating, and interpretation. It emphasized the absolute necessity for new basic research to be undertaken, organized as a series of team projects.
New discoveries have resulted in revised concepts of the origin and evolution of animal species, vegetation patterns, landscape features, and of man himself and his culture. This more precise knowledge has underlined the need above all to review the revised dating of human and cultural evolution in the light of the geophysical methods that now provide an absolute time scale. This is equally as applicable to archaeologists and ethnohistorians concerned with later prehistoric times as it is to those dealing with the study of early man.
1. This conference was entitled “Systematic Investigation of the African Later Tertiary and Quaternary,” and the Proceedings, with discussions and recommendations are due to be published in 06, 1967 by the Chicago University Press under the title Background to Evolution in Africa, edited by Bishop, W. W. and Clark, J. Desmond Google Scholar.
2. A conference of West African archaeologists was held at Freetown in June, 1966. The next one is scheduled for June, 1967 in Nigeria, and regular annual meetings are projected.
3. Such a team is being trained at Harvard by Irven DeVore and Richard Lee for work on the Central Kalahari Bushmen, beginning July, 1967.
4. However, so far as Guinea is concerned, it appears to be impracticable to use them.
5. The Orange Basin work is being undertaken by G. C. Sampson, a member of the staff of the National Museum, Bloemfontein. Very important results have been obtained, modifying considerably previous knowledge of Later Stone Age industry and technology.
6. It has been ascertained that the Kafue Basin Survey is holding a watching brief on any discoveries that may be made, but there is no organized archaeological survey, nor, so far as is known, is one projected.
7. The Archaeology Committee of the African Studies Association has approached the authorities in Portugal and Moçambique with a view to initiating a survey and proper investigation of prehistoric and historic sites in the large area of the Lower Zambezi and tributary valleys that will be flooded when the projected Cahora-Bassa Dam is completed.
8. An international team under the direction of Professor F. Clark Howell of the University of Chicago is carrying out a three-year investigation of the Omo beds in southeastern Abyssinia and a University of California Expedition to Malawi has just completed a two-year investigation of the Pleistocene and later archaeology of the northern end of the Malawi Rift. In 1966 this team also investigated sediments in the Rukwa Basin and located archaeological and fauna-bearing localities.