África desconhecida: uma introdução à sua arqueologia

by Graham Connah, Carlos Magnavita (Translator)

O arqueólogo Graham Connah apresenta neste livro uma breve introdução ao passado africano, destinado a leitores não-especialistas e a estudantes universitários. Trazendo resultados recentes de pesquisas arqueológicas realizadas no continente, África Desconhecida oferece uma introdução didática ao passado de uma região cuja arqueologia permanece desconhecida para o público sem formação acadêmica. Os breves capítulos do livro abrangem temas como a origem da humanidade, a cultura material de caçadores-coletores, os primórdios da agricultura, o desenvolvimento da metalurgia, o aparecimento de tradições artísticas únicas, o surgimento dos primeiros Estados e cidades, a expansão comercial e as consequências provindas do contato com europeus e outros estrangeiros. O resultado é uma fascinante história contada de maneira acessível ao leitor comum.

Genres: Africa, Anthropology, Archaeology

288 pages, Paperback

First published August 19, 2004

About the author

Graham Connah is an Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, and is a Visiting Fellow in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University, Canberra. He has excavated and conducted archaeological fieldwork in Britain, Nigeria, Egypt, Uganda, and Australia. His best known books are The Archaeology of Benin (1975), Three Thousand Years in Africa (1981), African Civilizations (2nd ed., 2001), The Archaeology of Australia’s History (2nd ed., 1993), Kibiro (1996), Forgotten Africa (2004), also published in German (2006), French (2008) and Italian (2009), The Same Under a Different Sky? (2007), and Writing About Archaeology (2010). He was the founding editor of the journal Australasian Historical Archaeology (1983–88), and is a past President of the Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology (1993–97). His main interest remains the archaeology of tropical Africa, particularly the last 4000 years.

Reviews

[Lee Broderick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing about the archaeology of an entire continent is a very difficult task. When the prehistory begins millions of years before that of any other continent it is made even more so. To do all of that and make it accessible for the lay-reader? Surely an impossible task, no matter how important such an undertaking may be. Too wide a knowledge of sources, of disciplines, of languages, of places and of times is called for.

Somehow though, Graham Connah has managed to write a cohesive, readable and relatively comprehensive book on this vast subject. Short chapters make it very accessible and serve as launch-pads for further research on a particular topic if the reader is so inclined. These chapters are thematic but are arranged chronologically, so combining the virtues of both approaches and helping to create the book's role in serving as an introduction to specific topics (just mentioned).

Connah has always been a supremely gifted archaeology writer and that is very evident here in a book that should be inspiring the next generation of Africanist archaeologists. Perhaps mindful of taking on that weighty responsibility, the author also does a very good job of indicating those questions and problems of African archaeology which continue to tax scholars grappling with the subject. That said, at ten years of age it is also beginning to show its senescence in this regard (although not as much as it should!).

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for teaching.