The study of mining and metallurgy is essential to gain an understanding of Africa’s rich history. Explore the secrets of Africa’s forgotten technological past. From prospecting and mining to smelting and forging, discover the fascinating technologies used across the African continent over the last two and a half thousand years.

Through visits to ancient mines and archaeological sites this book recaptures the ancient knowledge and technology used in indigenous mining and metallurgy. Experience the birth of African mining and the rise and fall of great African empires and societies, while uncovering the exciting discoveries of iron, copper and later tin, bronze and gold work across Africa.

Follow the caravan trade routes between Africa and other regions in the world. Trace the wealth and knowledge exchanged through trade, while investigating the fascinating rituals, magic and taboos that played an important part in indigenous mining. And, finally, learn how this rich history can be used today to generate income through tourism for local communities.

Managing Heritage in Africa provides a wide-ranging, up-to-date synthesis of heritage management practice in Africa, covering a broad spectrum of heritage issues such as archaeology, living traditions, sacred sites, heritage of pain (slavery), international conventions cultural landscapes, heritage in conflict areas and heritage versus development. Dealing with both intangible and tangible heritage, Managing Heritage in Africa gives an informative insight into some of the major issues and approaches to contemporary heritage management in Africa and situates the challenges facing heritage practitioners.

Conditioned by local ways of knowing and doing, Great Zimbabwe develops a new interpretation of the famous World Heritage site of Great Zimbabwe. It combines archaeological knowledge, including recent material from the author's excavations, with native concepts and philosophies. Working from a large data set has made it possible, for the first time, to develop an archaeology of Great Zimbabwe that is informed by finds and observations from the entire site and wider landscape. In so doing, the book strongly contributes towards decolonising African and world archaeology. Written in an accessible manner, the book is aimed at undergraduate students, graduate students, and practicing archaeologists both in Africa and across the globe. The book will also make contributions to the broader field such as African Studies, African History, and World Archaeology through its emphasis on developing synergies between local ways of knowing and the archaeology.

Conditioned by local ways of knowing and doing, Great Zimbabwe develops a new interpretation of the famous World Heritage site of Great Zimbabwe. It combines archaeological knowledge, including recent material from the author's excavations, with native concepts and philosophies. Working from a large data set has made it possible, for the first time, to develop an archaeology of Great Zimbabwe that is informed by finds and observations from the entire site and wider landscape. In so doing, the book strongly contributes towards decolonising African and world archaeology. Written in an accessible manner, the book is aimed at undergraduate students, graduate students, and practicing archaeologists both in Africa and across the globe. The book will also make contributions to the broader field such as African Studies, African History, and World Archaeology through its emphasis on developing synergies between local ways of knowing and the archaeology.

Managing Heritage in Africa provides a wide-ranging, up-to-date synthesis of heritage management practice in Africa, covering a broad spectrum of heritage issues such as archaeology, living traditions, sacred sites, heritage of pain (slavery), international conventions cultural landscapes, heritage in conflict areas and heritage versus development. Dealing with both intangible and tangible heritage, Managing Heritage in Africa gives an informative insight into some of the major issues and approaches to contemporary heritage management in Africa and situates the challenges facing heritage practitioners.

This book seeks to communicate to both a global and local audience, the key attributes of pre-industrial African metallurgy such as technological variation across space and time, methods of mining and extractive metallurgy and the fabrication of metal objects. These processes were transformative in a physical and metaphoric sense, which made them total social facts. Because the production and use of metals was an accretion of various categories of practice, a chaine operatoire conceptual and theoretical framework that simultaneously considers the embedded technological and anthropological factors was used. The book focuses on Africa's different regions as roughly defined by cultural geography. On the one hand there is North Africa, Egypt, the Egyptian Sudan, and the Horn of Africa which share cultural inheritances with the Middle East and on the other is Africa south of the Sahara and the Sudan which despite interacting with the former is remarkably different in terms of technological practice. For example, not only is the timing of metallurgy different but so is the infrastructure for working metals and the associated symbolic and sociological factors. The cultural valuation of metals and the social positions of metal workers were different too although there is evidence of some values transfer and multi-directional technological cross borrowing. The multitude of permutations associated with metals production and use amply demonstrates that metals participated in the production and reproduction of society. Despite huge temporal and spatial differences there are so many common factors between African metallurgy and that of other regions of the world. For example, the role of magic and ritual in metal working is almost universal be it in Bolivia, Nepal, Malawi, Timna, Togo or Zimbabwe. Similarly, techniques of mining were constrained by the underlying geology but this should not in any way suggest that Africa's metallurgy was derivative or that the continent had no initiative. Rather it demonstrates that when confronted with similar challenges, humanity in different regions of the world responded to identical challenges in predictable ways mediated as mediated by the prevailing cultural context. The success of the use of historical and ethnographic data in understanding variation and improvisation in African metallurgical practices flags the potential utility of these sources in Asia, Latin America and Europe. Some nuance is however needed because it is simply naive to assume that everything depicted in the history or ethnography has a parallel in the past and vice versa. Rather, the confluence of archaeology, history and ethnography becomes a pedestal for dialogue between different sources, subjects and ideas that is important for broadening our knowledge of global categories of metallurgical practice.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology brings together contributions from a global community of leading scholars to present a comprehensive overview of the current state of the field. The Encyclopedia covers the breadth of topics and leading questions in the practice and study of archaeology across the continent, from the emergence of human ancestors and the earliest manifestation of human culture to the role of cultural heritage in the present day. African archaeology is a field where discoveries are continuously being made and disciplinary specializations are constantly emerging. As a result, capturing an accurate snapshot of the current body of research is a challenge. Neither is it always possible to produce a volume that synthesizes local and regional histories, both recent and ancient, into a cohesive understading of the continent. This volume is a major landmark in that it achieves those goals. The Encyclopedia engages with topical themes such as the changing nature of social organization, innovations in livelihoods and subsistence strategies, changing technology and materials, and human resilience across regions and time periods. This compilation is a must-have companion for anyone interested in the full range of African archaeology in terms of specialization, geographical coverage, gender representation, and sound scholarship. The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeolgy is a resource for transforming understanding and practice in African archaeology, and an essential resource for those from other regions interested in learning about the deep and recent African peoples and pasts.