The investigation of Islamic archaeology in Ethiopia has until recently been neglected. Excavations at Harlaa, a large urban centre in eastern Ethiopia, are now beginning to redress this lack of research attention. By establishing occupation and material sequences, and by assessing the chronology and material markers of Islamisation, recent work provides important new insight on the presence and role of Muslims and Islamic practice at Harlaa, and in the Horn of Africa more generally. The results challenge previous assumptions of cultural homogeneity, instead indicating the development of cosmopolitanism. They also suggest a possible historical identity for Harlaa: as Hubät/Hobat, the capital of the Hārlā sultanate.

Archaeology increasingly attests the complex and cosmopolitan nature of societies in medieval Ethiopia (c. seventh to early eighteenth centuries AD). Without negating the existence of relations of dominance and periods of isolation, key emergent themes of such research are pluralism and interaction. Four religious traditions are relevant to this theme: Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Indigenous religions. This article introduces a special section of contributions on medieval Ethiopia and sets the scheme by highlighting the temporality of cosmopolitanism as episodic rather than continuous. The following articles address varied aspects of this cosmopolitanism, identifying issues of general relevance for studies of the archaeology of religion, as well as the need for further research in Ethiopia.

Cattle are a key focus of traditional pastoralist societies in eastern Africa and also figure prominently in the rock art of the region. In both contexts, their cultural and social significance is underscored by colour and decoration. The contemporary Mursi of south-west Ethiopia transform favourite oxen in various ways, including horn alteration, ear cutting and decorative pattern branding. These practices may provide direct insight into cattle portrayal in Ethiopian rock art, where abstract or non-realistic symbols depicted on cattle coats could indicate the modification, alteration or beautification of cattle in prehistoric societies.

We acknowledge the observations of Doppler et al. on our paper and we are grateful to Antiquity s editor for this opportunity to reply to their objections. Firstly it should be noted that we have not claimed that the Chiemsee once included the Tuttensee. We agree that the region in which both lakes lie was glacially formed. But while Lake Chiemsee is the result of the last Ice Age, the Tuttensee basin originates from a much later Holocene meteorite impact. We do not use the myth of Phaeton to date this event that is known as the Chiemgau impact. On the contrary, we estimate from archaeological evidence and OSL dating that the event occurred between 2200 and 800 BC i.e. the Bronze Age (Rappengluck et al. 2010: 436).We go on to discuss parallels between the independent dating of the Chiemgau impact and the possible time frame of the myth (Rappengluck et al. 2010: 435–37).

I like this paper firstly for it attempts to redress, forcefully, the biased perceptions of Africa often still held by usually external observers, and secondly for it engages directly with materiality through an object-based perspective in indicating the complexities that existed in the Siin (Senegal), primarily in the 18th and 19th centuries. Richard is to be congratulated on providing us with a thoughtful and thought-provoking paper indicating that, like other recent research on African and external entanglements and connections (e.g. Croucher 2006), research framed broadly under the remit of ‘historical archaeology’ is some of the most stimulating currently being undertaken in the continent (e.g. Gavua 2008; Schmidt 2006).

Ethnography of the Tallensi shows how rights of access to shrines could be granted to people in other places and how beneficiaries may take with them samples of stone used at the mother shrine. Reasons for taking the samples are considered. It is suggested that Tallensi practice offers an analogy for selection and transfer of stone in the Neolithic of Britain and Ireland.

Exploring the archaeological correlates of Islam in Bahrain, the author finds that ‘Islamic identity’ is no singular condition: communities are diverse, exhibiting a culture that is rich, multicultural and complex.

In June–July 2000 a sample collection programme was completed in the extant carnelian mines of Jhagadia Taluka, Broach District, Gujarat, Western India (FIGURE 1). The predominant rationale behind the fieldwork is an Africanist one. Namely, to obtain modern comparative material which could be elementally analysed and compared with samples of carnelian beads from archaeological contexts in West and West-Central Africa. For besides local production of carnelian beads in West Africa, it seems that certain examples were also imported via trans-Saharan trade routes, probably from India (Insoll 2000). However, at present such an attribution remains purely hypothetical, based as it is upon the colour, workmanship, and shapes, resembling the carnelian bead production of Western India. Beads known to have been extensively exported in the medieval period, the focus here, and of course before (Theunissen et al. 2000). Thus it is hoped that the geochemical analysis of the carnelian samples from Gujarat will either prove or disprove a trade to West Africa. Following a successful pilot study at the NERC LA-ICP-MS facility at Kingston University, the full programme of analysis will now be completed in co-operation with Dr Dave Polya in the new LA-ICP-MS facility at the School of Earth Sciences, University of Manchester.