In January 2001, a team of researchers from the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) conducted an innovative maritime archaeology project on the East African coast in partnership with the British Institute in Eastern Africa and the National Museums of Kenya. Its focus was Mombasa Island on the southern Kenyan coast, a historical settlement and port for nearly 2000 years (Berg 1968; Sassoon 1980; 1982). The East African seaboard, stretching from Somalia in the north to Madagascar and Mozambique in the south, was culturally dynamic throughout the historical period. This area, traditionally known as the Swahili coast, is culturally defined as a maritime zone extending 2000 km from north to south, but reaching a mere 15 hi inland. The origins of ‘Swahili’ cultural identity originated during the middle of the 1st millennium AD, following consolidation of earlier farming and metalusing Bantu-speaking communities along the coast and emergence of a distinctive ‘maritime’ orientation and set of cultural traditions (eg Allen 1993; Chami 1998; Helm 2000; Horton & Middelton 2000). Previous research produced evidence of exploitation of marine resources for food and an early engagement in longdistance exchange networks, linking parts ofthis coast with the Classical world by at least the BC/AD transition.

Sub-Saharan West Africa has remained largely a blank space on the world rock-art map, in spite of a steady trickle of reports during the past century on pictograph and petroglyph sites in the West African sahel and savanna belts. It seems that the nature of the rock art reported, predominantly ‘geometric’ and saurian motifs, and ‘stick figures’, as well as its apparent recent age, formed little incentive for in-depth studies of rock art in this region. From sub-Saharan Mali, for example, only two sites have been published to a satisfactory standard (Huysecom 1990; Huysecom et al. 1996). The richness of the region in rock art, as indicated by several authors (e.g. Griaule 1938; Huysecom & Mayor 1991/92; Togola et al. 1995), has been confirmed by on-going research on rock art in the Boucle du Baoulé region (map, FIGURE 5) in the southwest of the country (Kleinitz 2000). In three field seasons, 14 known and 38 newly identified rock-shelters and open-air sites with pictographs and peboglyphs have been recorded.

In 1990, about 30 km southwest of Dakhla oasis, the most remote settlement in Egypt’s Western Desert, a hieroglyphic rock inscription was discovered that turned out to be the first clear evidence of an Ancient Egyptian presence so far into the Sahara (Burkard 1997). The short text states that a higher official named Meri went out to meet (?) oasis dwellers. Details of translation, interpretation and palaeographic dating of the text are a matter of discussion among Egyptologists, but it clearly seems to be of Old or Early Middle Kingdom origin. The home of the ‘oasis dwellers’ can reasonably be inferred as lying further west or southwest. However, the nearest places with permanent water in these directions are the Kufra Oasis in Libya and the wells of Djebel Uweinat, which lie, respectively, some 600 km and 500 lan away. How was it possible to master such distances under the then already prevailing hyperarid conditions by the only available means of transportation, a train of donkeys that have to drink at least every three days?

The Haubi Basin, situated in the Irangi Hills of Kondoa District, Dodoma Region, Tanzania (FIGURE 1), exhibits some of the most extreme examples of erosion and associated sedimentation in the region (Christiansson 1981; Payton et al. 1992) (FIGLIRE 2). The severity of the problem, with its consequent loss of productive land, has been known since the beginning of the 20th century (Kannenberg 1900; Obst 1915). Recognition of the extent and severity of the issues encouraged the British colonial government to introduce a variety of measures aimed at soil conservation in the 1930s (Fosbrooke 1950). These included the construction of check-dams, contour bunds and contour planting with sisal. After independence, a second programme of soil conservation measures was launched. These were initially similar to those employed under colonialism, but later included de-stocking, resulting in the removal of some 90,000 livestock from the most severely eroded areas. As in the colonial period, recent overexploitation of land resources by local populations was regarded as the primary explanation for the continuing soil erosion.

Many infrastructural development projects are now being carried out in Cameroon (e.g. road building, oil pipeline construction, and urban renewal). At present, no specific data base exists to determine the current and potential extent of damage to archaeological and historical sites. To redress this, we believe that there is an urgent need to make impact assessments and mitigation work a mandatory precondition of development approval for entrepreneurs and public works professionals operating in the country.

In 1929, commenting on southern Africa’s rock art, Leo Frobenius remarked: ‘… oddities occur which are completely outside our understanding. There are large forms, shaped like galls or livers, into which human figures are painted …’ (1929: 333). He coined the term‘formling’ to ‘denote this composite type of forms and yet not easily explained’ (Goodall 1959: 62, my emphasis). These motifs (FIGURE 1) still remain poorly understood. In 1998, I began research into their form and meaning. In this note I set out the history of the formling debate and introduce some of my new findings.

The appearance of Oldowan sites c. 2.5 million years ago signals one of the most important adaptive shifts in human evolution. Large mammal u butchery, stone artefact manufacture and novel transport and discard behaviours led to the accumulation of the first recognized archaeological debris. Although the earliest instances of these behaviours are 2.5 million years ago, most of what we know about Oldowan palaeoecology and behaviour is derived from localities more than half a million years younger, particularly c. 1.8 million-year-old sites from Bed I Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (Potts 1988). Sites from Kanjera South, Homa Peninsula, southwestern Kenya, yield dense concentrations of artefacts in association with the oldest (c. 2.2 million years) substantial sample of archaeological fauna known thus far from Africa. This study is the first to use a wide range of traditional and innovative techniques to investigate Oldowan hominin behaviour and site formation processes before 2 million years ago.

The Buganda state, which flourished on the northern shores of Lake Victoria from the 17th to the 19th centuries AD, is widely regarded as one of the most significant socio-political developments of the African continent, most notably having featured prominently in Frazer’s The Golden Bough. In bananas, Buganda had a unique subsistence base, and its later history suggests an unusual urban trend of large capitals occupied over short periods of time. Given these prominent characteristics it is incredible, therefore, that there has been no concerted archaeological research programme in Buganda.

The Kintampo Archaeological Research Project is the first venture conducted under the auspices of the academic collaboration established between the Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana (UG) and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL). KARP is a field-based project designed around two separate areas of research, encon~passingth e Late Stone Age (LSA) Punpun (hunter–gatherers) and Kintampo Cultures (agropastoralists) and development and change within iron metallurgical technology in the region. These studies aim to elucidate the social, economic and technological dynamics of prehistoric Ghana and to generate material that will be made available to researchers from both Universities. The direct responsibility for supervision of the project on the British side is Dr Kevin MacDonald (UCL), Dr Yaw Bredwa-Mensah (UG) supervises and co-ordinates the research collaboration, and overall responsibility for the project lies with Professor Peter Ucko (UCL). To date the project has undertaken three field seasons: an initial survey of the study area, followed by the excavation of several suitable sites during the second season and this year. An additional season will be conducted during summer 2002, completing the first phase of KARP. However, continuing joint collaborations are envisaged.

Past research in the Acacus mountains has been mostly concerned with studies of rock art (Mori 1965) and site-oriented investigations, particularly rock-shelters in the central and northern Acacus (Uan Muhuggiag: Mori 1965; Barich 1987; Ti-n-Torha North: Barich 1974; 1987; Wadi Athal: Barich & Mori 1970). This important research disclosed the astonishing archaeological richness of the area. Particular emphasis was given to data suggesting the existence of early forms of pastoral economy in the region (Mori 1961; 1965; Barich 1987). This led to the hypothesis, differently and repeatedly formulated, of a Saharan focus for the emergence of food-producing activity, based on cattle herding, independent from the Nile Valley and the Near East (Mori 1961; Barich 1987). This is not the place to discuss in detail this interesting, but now largely discarded, hypothesis; what is important to underline, however, is the limited database used in its formulation. The results of only three excavations, all located in the mountain ranges, provided the basis of the evidence presented without any attempt to place these sites in a broader regional framework.

The landscapes of the central highlands of Madagascar are inhabited by the spirits of the dead as well as by the living. The ancestors are a forceful presence in the everyday world, and the archaeology of the central highlands is intimately entwined with them. This is made manifest both in the on-the-ground experiences encountered during fieldwork, and in archaeological narratives, such as the one presented here. Tombs are a traditional focus of archaeological research, and those that dot the hills of the central highlands are part of a network of beliefs and practices which engage with the landscape as a whole and through which social identity is constructed and maintained. In the central highlands, and indeed elsewhere in Madagascar, there is an intimate relationship between peoples’ understandings of their social and physical location in the world and their understanding of their relationship to the dead.

Mali is a country with a rich history and diverse cultures. Its cultural heritage is, however, threatened by both the pillage of archaeological sites and illicit trade (ICOM 1995; Bedaux & Rowlands, this volunle). Looting has dramatically increased in recent years, especially in the Inland Delta of the Niger, and has obliged Malian authorities to take measures to counteract this destruction. Within the framework of a long-term Malian-Dutch cultural heritage programme, the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde at Leiden recently initiated large-scale excavations in the Inland Niger Delta at Dia, in close cooperation with the Université du Mali, the Institut des Sciences Humaines and the Musée National du Mali in Bamako, the Mission Culturelle in Djenné, the Universities of Paris I and VI, the C.N.R.S., University College London and Leiden University. This excavation, financed principally by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, started in 1998 and will continue until 2004. It is a continuation of previous international programmes of site survey and documentation in the Inland Niger Delta, which the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako has co-ordinated over the past two decades (e.g. Raimbault & Sanogo 1991; Dembele et al. 1993; Togola 1996). An initial season of prospection was carried out in 1998 in the Inland Delta, following which the vicinity of Dia was chosen as the principal research zone for the project.

Eritrea fought a war of liberation for three decades between the early 1960s and 1991. While professional research stagnated because of the war, amateur archaeologists provided the sole source of information for ancient material culture in the country during this era. With the coming of independence in 1993, awareness of the potential value of Eritrea’s heritage resources began to grow, leading to an initiative in 1997 to teach archaeology and heritage management at the University of Asmara.

Out of the combined training and research programmes conducted by the University of Asmara have come several major discoveries that change the way that the rise of urbanism is seen in the Horn of Africa. We highlight research showing that between 800 BC and 400 BC the greater Asmara area of Eritrea supported the earliest settled agropastoralist communities known in the highlands of the Horn. These communities pre-date and are contemporaneous with Pre-Aksumite settlements in the highlands of southern Eritrea and northern Ethiopia.

Composite tools and hafted tools were used world-wide over the last 35,000 years, and possibly earlier than that (Boëda et al. 1996; Holdaway 1996). Evidence for the use of composite tools in South Africa is provided by a small number of arrows from ethnohistorical and archaeological collections (Binneman 1994; Deacon & Deacon 1999: 158–9), a handful of mounted stone artefacts, and a significant number of mastic stained stone artefacts from archaeological sites (Deacon & Deacon 1999). On the basis of the limited sample of near intact mounted artefacts found in South Africa, it appears that small scrapers were side-mounted (at almost 90° to the axis of the handle) and fixed asymmetrically by surrounding resin (Deacon & Deacon 1980: 31–2). Adzes, on the other hand, were end-mounted (on one extreme, and along the same plane, of the handle) and held by a large ovoid lump of mastic (Hewitt 1921; Goodwin & Van Riet Lowe 1929: plate 42; Sampson 1974: figure 105). From their analysis of the available material two decades ago, Deacon & Deacon (1980: 37) concluded that the size and form of the insert was determined largely by the mode of hafting.

Among the general public, the extraordinarily important role played by cultural resource management (hereafter CRM) procedures in the conservation of archaeological materials usually goes unrecognized. Popular images of the swashbuckling adventures of Indiana Jones, or somewhat more generally of intrepid archaeologists making the latest Fiild of the Century, do not accord well with the concept that the remains of past human activities are actual resources, ones that can and should be managed in the interest of nations and their citizens. All too often, the significance of CRM legislation and the archaeological research that stems from it is not recognized even by academic archaeologists, in part because publication procedures and venues are so different in the worlds of academic and contract archaeology.

One of the greatest disasters for African archaeology is the systematic plundering of archaeological sites for the antiquities trade (e.g. Schmidt & McIntosh 1996; ICOM 1994). An eloquent proof of this plundering is the beautiful catalogue ‘Earth and ore’, published in 1997 by Schaedler. Of the 668 objects illustrated fullcolour in this catalogue all come, except for a dozen objects and some forgeries, from recent looting of sites in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana and Nigeria.

Regions in Mali that are particularly rich in cultural heritage, such as the Niger Inner Delta and the Dogon country, are particularly shocking examples of this systematic plundering. Archaeological research in 1991 in the south of the Delta, undertaken within the framework of the Malian-Dutch ‘Toguéré’ project of the Institut des Sciences Humaines at Bamako, showed that 450h of the 830 visited sites exhibited traces of illicit excavations (Dembele et al. 1993). In 1996, a sample of 80 of these sites was revisited by Annette Schmidt. The percentage of plundered sites had increased by 20%) (Annette Schmidt pers. comm.). One does not need much imagination to realize the scale of this disaster.