ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE AFRICAN HISTORIC ORIENTATION


Most parts of Africa cannot be said to have developed any major form of documentation in the past. As at 1000 AD very few written records existed about African History. Archaeological materials helped a lot in the realization of the truth in most facets of African History. Although the reality of archaeological research in Africa is underutilized and unevenly distributed, it has shown that a lot about African History can be unraveled through its use.

One major global reality that archaeological research has given a little bit of light is the African position towards the human development transition. Although some people tend to ignore this because of less clarity in the explanation and evidence, the biological origin of man has been traced in some quarters to the Homo sapiens era. Archaeological evidence show that the transformation the evolution in the human development processes happened in Africa. Most of the evidence about this transformation from the ape-like man have been seen and evaluated from Africa, mostly eastern and southern Africa. Some of these evidential realities point to over 1 millions years of existence. Some have said that Africa the continent that people first inhabited.

One very major problem in the use of Archaeological means in African History is that at present, researches are not evenly distributed. The cause of this is the lack of development of the profession in Africa. Archaeologists in Africa are not professionally involved in the research activities. The major contributory factor is lack of funding and possible political will towards this. There are also the African superstitious beliefs that hamper some researches. An archaeological research is financially very demanding and the funds to develop the professional and as well fund researches are practically none existing.
Some important findings have been realized through archaeological researches in Africa. Some of them are the famous Igbo Ukwu archaeological findings organized by Thurstan Shaw in the present Nigeria. Pottery fragments found in the Gambia, the excavation carried out about the 1930s at Mapungubwe south of Zimbabwe etc.


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