Elucidating the African past

International understanding of the African past has increased and improved enormously during the past one hundred, more particularly the past fifty, years. This understanding extends both throughout the continent itself and far beyond, so that Africa's contribution to the whole story of human development and achievement is coming into focus. This is a matter for celebration, not for ignorance (J. G. D. Clark 1961) or doubt and backward-looking criticism (M. Hall 2002). It is a story to which the contribution of archaeology is paramount and which needs to be told and understood both in African and in world-wide contexts (D. W. Phillipson 2003b).

This book attempts to provide an up-to-date summary and interpretation of the archaeological evidence for the past of humans in Africa from their first appearance up to the time when written history becomes the primary source of information. In chronological terms, this period covers all but a tiny fraction of the time that the earth has had human inhabitants. It now seems very probable that it was in Africa that humankind first evolved, during the period between 5.0 and 2.5 million years ago. At the other end of the time-scale, the earliest written records relating to Africa, those of the ancient Egyptians, began about 5000 years ago; for many other parts of the continent, notably the interior regions south of the equator, no such records are more than one or two centuries old.