The future of archaeology in Africa

Abstract

The 14th Congress of the Pan African Archaeological Association for Prehistory and Related Studies, and the 22nd Biennial Meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists were hosted by the University of theWitwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa from the 14–18 of July 2014. Keynote speakers offered insights into the state of archaeology as a discipline in Africa; they acknowledged its diverse and wide-ranging scope, and the achievement of scientific advances in investigating the African past, but they also noted a number of challenges confronting the discipline. These included persistent barriers to the investigation of the past. For example, Africa’s past continues to be interpreted in exotic terms, following Anglo-American academic traditions. By this, I mean that the archaeology syllabus and research agenda in Africa still follows the model set by British,North American and, to some extent, mainland European universities. The academic curriculum remains weak in terms of decolonising the discipline, and it is largely unable to challenge the dominant theoretical and even philosophical positions, which have prevailed since the rapid development of archaeology as a discipline in the twentieth century. Poverty among African societies and the largely poor African economies provides an uncomfortable setting within which archaeology is practised; this naturally raises questions about how much financial priority should be afforded to investigating the past. Coupled with this are the serious, and escalating, political and security challenges afflicting the continent. These barriers need to be broken down; a continent-wide approach is required to achieve this end.