Africa has the longest and arguably the most diverse archaeological record of any of the continents. It is where the human lineage first evolved and from where Homo sapiens spread across the rest of the world. Later, it witnessed novel experiments in food-production and unique trajectories to urbanism and the organisation of large communities that were not always structured along strictly hierarchical lines. Millennia of engagement with societies in other parts of the world confirm Africa's active participation in the construction of the modern world, while the richness of its history, ethnography, and linguistics provide unusually powerful opportunities for constructing interdisciplinary narratives of Africa's past. This Handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of African archaeology, covering the entirety of the continent's past from the beginnings of human evolution to the archaeological legacy of European colonialism. As well as covering almost all periods and regions of the continent, it includes a mixture of key methodological and theoretical issues and debates, and situates the subject's contemporary practice within the discipline's history and the infrastructural challenges now facing its practitioners. Bringing together essays on all these themes from over seventy contributors, many of them living and working in Africa, it offers a highly accessible, contemporary account of the subject for use by scholars and students of not only archaeology, but also history, anthropology, and other disciplines.

Sharing the memories of growing up Lane between the 1960's and 1970's, Debra Lane LeBlanc tells the stories of her large family, highlighting the hilarity and humility resulting from three very different decades living together in limited space. This love story of a family unfolds in story-telling fashion, depicting raucous 4th of July parties, the shock and embarrassment of her father wearing his beloved WW II-Navy issued trunks way past their prime, scary moments on Easter Sunday with wayward lambs, and taking turns being the unfortunate target of her mother's spot-on aim with her trusty gold-flowered plastic slippers. Funny and occasionally insightful, this book underscores the joys and trials of a quirky, but loving family.

They say it takes a lot of muscle to frown but only one to smile. It has been proven that laughter is good medicine. This book is filled with a lot of laughter. Clean jokes for the whole family.